A typical day as Brad Paisley's Guitar Tech - ASK ZAC EP 9

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Well hey guys welcome to another Ask
0:48
Zack and we're doing another viewer
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mailbag episode I love doing this please
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keep the questions coming in we've got a
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doozy for today a real doozy
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so you got to wait all the way to the
1:03
end to really get the the complete
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payoff on this one so first off Josh
1:10
Parsons asked was that Reggie young on
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Conway Twitty 's tight-fitting jeans and
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it yes it was it took me a little while
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to to find the credits for it
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but that's off of Conway Twitty 's mr. t
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album which has a snazzy cover with him
1:30
in a golfing outfit and in a green car
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so but anyway the only yeah Reggie is
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listed as lead guitar and the only guy
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listed is that and it certainly sounds
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like Reggie on tight fitting jeans and
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if you haven't heard that song you need
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you need to listen to it it's it's
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amazing just it's amazing
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another Conway Twitty that it doesn't
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feature Reggie young but you ought to
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listen to it it's called working girl
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especially if you can find the live
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version where John Huey is playing pedal
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steel and don't want chicken pickin on
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pedal steel and it's it's on the the old
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wagon master show Oh golly Porter
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Wagoner's show yeah they're on that and
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John Huey is like chicken pickin on the
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pedal steel and it's it's fantastic you
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need to find that and there and they've
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got dance moves and everything yeah you
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got to hear that okay so thanks Josh for
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that one the second one
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and the reason I played you know a bit
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of Brad Paisley's wrapped around is
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because of this next question and this
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one is by Todd Williams so he said I
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love the channel thank you said correct
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me if I'm wrong you teched for Brad right
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yes I did
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I was Brad's first full-time guitar tech
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I worked for him for from 2002 through
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2005 early 2005 said I'd love to hear
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more about the day-to-day of being a
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tech for Brad Paisley also did Brad have
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any practice routines on the road
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alright so as I said before I was Brad's
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first full-time guitar tech before that
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his bass player Kenny Lewis had kind of
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put his stuff up but then of course
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couldn't help him during the show then
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later on
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Kendall Marcy his current band leader
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and keyboard player and banjo player he
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helped him out some his brother Chris
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Marcy helped out some while they were
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doing other jobs and so I was his first
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full-time guitar tech we went to Belmont
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University together in the early 90s we
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played in bands together we used to tear
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apart telecasters and swap pickups and
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necks and just I mean we would
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Frankenstein up guitars at the times he
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would have a Telecaster and one of my
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necks on it and I'd have one of his and
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you know it was just crazy so he tracked
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me down through the Belmont Alumni
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Association because I had moved away
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from Nashville I had lived in France for
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a year and then I had gone back and was
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working in Pasadena Texas for a good
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friend of mine named Jim Theis and if
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you're out there Jim thank you for being
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a wonderful employer and friend so I was
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working in in Pasadena
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Brad calls me up said hey you know you
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want to
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and would you be interested to be my
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guitar tech hemmed and hawed for a
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little bit and he he flew me out to let
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me you know kind of see what it was
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gonna be like and of course you know how
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could i how could I not say yes to it so
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I did I saw I went to work for Brad and
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it made a it opened so many doors for me
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as far as in the course in the music
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industry I owe a lot to Brad Paisley so
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Thank You Brad so let's get down to
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answering the question day-to-day again
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this was you know early on we had two
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buses in an 18-wheeler and you know the
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buses had Brad and road manager and some
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of the band guys and then the other bus
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had the crew and some more band guys and
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then the 18-wheeler was carrying you
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know like amps and guitars and and our
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set and then it had like the
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front-of-house mixing board and the
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monitor mixing board in the front of
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house is of course the guy that's out in
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the audience that that is you know has a
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big mixing board he controls the sound
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that the audience hears and then a
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monitor engineer controls the sound that
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people hear in there in-ear monitors or
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in wedges whatever you have so we would
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load in we had a set that was a boat
6:02
dock with a thing it was like a 20-foot
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bass boat from Ranger Boats and it was
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cut stem to stern right down the middle
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so we could you know make it easier to
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pack in the 18-wheeler so we had that
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and we had this boat dock and so we'd
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get all that up and then we would get
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all amps and I'd set up guitar world
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where I worked on guitars and had all
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sorts of tools and spare tubes and all
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sorts of stuff and and that's where I
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would you know work on guitars and of
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course I'd get all of his amplifier set
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up and at that point he was using three
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dr. Z amps he was using a Maserati and
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two Karmann Ghia amplifiers and we had a
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rack that had Wireless and had a gcx
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switcher and
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a bunch of pedals and drawers and the
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the gcx had a controller board that brad
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had one in front of him on stage and
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then I had one off stage and we'll talk
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more about that later so we get
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everything set up make sure everything
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was sounding okay there weren't any
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problems weren't any like noise issues
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sometimes Kevin Freeman at
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front-of-house he would say hey I'm hey
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I'm getting a bad buzz on you know and
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on your you're right amp and so sure
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enough there would be like a ground
7:20
issue or something and I'd have to
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figure that out the gig was hard because
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I'd never been a guitar tech before I
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had certainly been a guitar player and
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played gigs and and worked on my own
7:33
gear to a degree but I was still kind of
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using a repairman so all of a sudden I
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was having to do a lot more than I had
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done in the past and it's at this point
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I want to thank a lot of people that
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helped me out because Brad would ask me
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to do things and I wouldn't know how to
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do it and I couldn't just say well ooh
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ho I you know I needed to have a good
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answer and so I'd say I don't know how
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to do this but I will figure it out and
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Brad appreciated that so immediately
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when he would ask me to do something I
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didn't know how to do I would call up
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guys like Bill crook thank you Bill
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Mike Zaite aka dr. Z thank you dr. Z
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Robert Keeley you know the guys at Voodoo
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Lab James Santiago who of course he's
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gone on to you know designed like the ox
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and things like that and Josh and some
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of the other guys at voodoo lab would
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help me out with the gcx and programming
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that so yeah so I had I had a lot of
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help so we would get everything going
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make sure everything was working right
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and then we would play a song so the
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band would come out and I would be kind
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of stunt Brad because we wanted to make
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sure everything was fine before we
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called Brad out and so I would play
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guitar and we'd usually play like I'm
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Merrill Haggard tune like big city or
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ramblin fever
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showing lefty and yeah and we would you
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know kind of rough things in make sure
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everything's good and we would give the
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road manager the thumbs up if everything
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was good and then he would go and get
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Brad off the bus and then I would hand
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Brad Telecaster that was in tune and
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they would run through a song and that's
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usually when the tweaking would begin
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because Brad really wanted his guitar to
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sound as stellar as possible in every
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venue we played at so to do that you
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know of course you know we would be
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changing out amps changing out speaker
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cabinets changing the height of pickups
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changing out pickups changing pedals all
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sorts of things you know using like a
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JBL 15-inch speaker instead of a
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selection blue on one amp to get more
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low-end or you know all sorts of things
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so now while we were doing all that the
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band was standing around with their
10:00
instruments on because after we did the
10:03
tweaking we'd have to run another song
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to make sure it sounded good in context
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because that's what mattered it needed
10:09
to sound good in the context of the band
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so then we would play another song or
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two and if Brad was happy that was it we
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would break and and that was when I
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would start stringing guitars so in the
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early days I would string about four or
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five instruments so those you know
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couple telecasters for Brad maybe an
10:28
acoustic Gary Hooker I was usually
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stringing up an acoustic and electric
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for him then as things got a little
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crazier and we had more guitars because
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in the early days Brad had his 68
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Paisley and he had the first blue crook
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tele and that was it he had those two
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tellies in that one we didn't have you
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know we had the main guitar in the
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backup and that was it
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but soon bill crook started building
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more instruments for us and so you know
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in a couple of years we had a fleet of
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you know crook guitars all different
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color you know Paisley and unfortunately
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a lot all those got destroyed or most of
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them got destroyed in the big flood but
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you know I decide to string up guitars
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then usually it was time to go to
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catering and have some dinner
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and after after I ate some dinner then I
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would go turn on all the amps all the
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dr. Z amps and turn them on so they can
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warm up I would do a run-through I would
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go through all of his petals and all of
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his sounds and make sure everything
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sounded correct then you know do any
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more you know a little tweaking or
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repairs or anything that needed to be
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done and then we would start the show
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you know I would take a guitar to Brad
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and he would he would kind of warm up on
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it some and you know we'd start the show
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then after about two songs we would do
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our first guitar change now I had a
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setlist
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set up and on it it had any capo
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positions on acoustics and and what
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guitar we were going to use and you know
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when we were gonna change stuff and so
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but about two songs in we would change
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guitars and that was a good time for us
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to touch base on how how things were
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sounding and how things were going and
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you know Brad might say sounds great or
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it might be I need a little more delay
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or I think one of the mics got bumped
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and I didn't remember going back and it
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was obvious a stagehand must have hit a
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mic because I mean it was it was nowhere
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near the speaker and it had sounded
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right before but someone had obviously
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run past the speaker cabinet you know
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right as the show was starting or
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something
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so anyway would fix that other times
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there would be other issues like there'd
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be a security issue in the front of the
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stage where you know audience members
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were doing something that was not kosher
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and Brad didn't want to point at them or
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anything so he would just tell me you
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know what was going on and then I could
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go offstage and get on the radio and and
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have things taken care of or I could
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tell monitor engineer you know mark that
13:01
he wants more of this or what have you
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so now to touch on what I mentioned
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earlier was the gcx switcher so what
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that was was that was how you controlled
13:14
the rack so Brad or I could change his
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sounds during the show and most the time
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it was me so we had kind of cues that
13:26
were
13:26
worked out and we would have moments in
13:29
songs where I would bring in different
13:32
sounds so I'm gonna take mud on the
13:36
tires as an example that one you know it
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starts off with just acoustic guitar and
13:44
you know banjo you know for the first
13:47
verse and then it has a pre-chorus it's
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in the key of D and the pre-course
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starts with a rake over a G chord
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[Music]
14:16
then I would turn the tremolo off and
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you'd go into the chorus and this I
14:23
really liked this rhythm pattern that he
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would use here he had started playing at
14:29
years before and I'd you know copied it
14:32
already and then I loved it that he used
14:34
it in mud on the tire so he went into
14:37
the chorus in heaven so yeah he would
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use that like on big city or other songs
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like you know you know where you might
14:47
go
14:48
[Music]
15:08
you
15:09
[Music]
15:17
Oh
15:20
so so I was an example of me kind of
15:24
bringing in a tremolo sound and then
15:25
going back to his normal Telecaster
15:27
sound which of course was the tele
15:28
through analog delay with a single
15:31
repeat I'm kind of replicating it here
15:33
with an old boss dm3 he used a way huge
15:36
aqua puss and that into the dr. Z amps
15:39
that was kind of his main core tone and
15:42
then other effects were brought in like
15:45
tremolo vibrato tube screamer
15:49
you know was used a lot for solos like
15:53
on ballads so not on the you know you
15:56
know of course he had it's kind of
15:57
straight Telecaster sound that he used
15:59
most of the time but then on a ballad
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you know for the solo I would bring in a
16:04
tube screamer patch and that would allow
16:07
him to be anywhere onstage and he didn't
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worry about running back to his you know
16:10
pedal board to to turn on a tube
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screamer so then we would you know
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hopefully the show would go smoothly
16:18
and you know and when it did I was very
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elated and yeah then we would load out
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and that was a typical day and then we
16:28
would do it again the next day and it
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was a lot of fun it got a little harder
16:33
as we started having full production
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meaning when we were carrying our own PA
16:37
and we started having video screens and
16:40
a lot of moving lights and things like
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that we started having low din at 6:00
16:43
a.m. and and I'm not being done to like
16:47
1:00 in the morning and then he'd have
16:48
to do it again the next day it got a
16:50
little harder it got a little tougher so
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but still it was a great gig and I
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learned so much from it and I'm so
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grateful to Brad Paisley so Brad thank
16:59
you
17:00
second part of the question was did Brad
17:02
have practice routine on the road no he
17:06
did not I mean he was playing a lot live
17:08
the only time he would really practice
17:11
was when we would be adding in a new
17:14
song to the setlist and so you know of
17:17
course he would record a whole album and
17:21
then they would start releasing singles
17:24
off the album and as they released the
17:26
singles we would start adding those
17:28
songs to the setlist
17:29
so I can remember vividly him getting a
17:32
task
17:33
phrase trainer thing that was a thing
17:35
that you could put a CD in you could
17:36
slow stuff down and he had to learn his
17:39
own guitar solo to mud on the tires and
17:41
some of the other tunes where you see in
17:43
the studio and I was there in the studio
17:46
you know I was I was with him for the
17:49
whole process of mud on the tires and
17:51
part of the album after that you know he
17:55
would play all these off-the-cuff solos
17:57
because he was trying to impress us so
18:00
you know because we would be doing
18:01
overdubs and so it'd be Bret's then
18:03
producer Frank Rogers an engineer and
18:07
myself and of course Brad and we'd all
18:10
be in the same room together in the
18:11
control room when we'd have amps you
18:13
know blaring in another room and he
18:16
would keep playing until I got a rise
18:17
out of us and you know and that's
18:19
usually you know what would be the
18:21
keeper and you know especially if you
18:24
made us laugh he knew he had a good a
18:26
good solo so yeah so then he would have
18:30
to relearn that solo so I thought that
18:32
was really funny and you know and great
18:34
you know he would he would you would
18:36
take a Telecaster and a little phrase
18:38
trainer on the back of the bus and he
18:40
would learn the solos as far as earlier
18:42
practice techniques back in college he
18:44
used to take he used to record himself
18:48
playing acoustic guitar finger-picking
18:50
and he recorded with a clip track and
18:53
then he would listen back to it at the
18:56
slowest speed and what that does is it
19:00
really allows you to see where you're
19:02
off the beat when your finger picking
19:04
and so yeah by slowing it down and
19:07
listening back and and because of that
19:10
because that hard work he had such he
19:12
instilled us has such stellar time and I
19:15
loved hearing him play acoustic he would
19:17
when we were doing the tracking sessions
19:19
and I he would play acoustic and it was
19:22
fantastic and I loved hearing him play
19:24
acoustic live I loved hearing him play
19:26
rhythm he was such a great rhythm player
19:28
and had such a great feel he had a nice
19:31
you know light swing to to what he did
19:34
and just he made everything feel it had
19:38
just a great feel to it alright so we've
19:43
we've talked about that now this is
19:45
the doozy part of the story so I found
19:52
this in my Brad Paisley archives and so
19:58
while we were out on the road we were
20:01
touring with some acts that were not
20:03
quote country sounding at all and they
20:05
were in really distorted guitars and
20:07
scented you know like rock music and
20:09
there's there's nothing wrong with that
20:11
but it was just you know it was getting
20:14
to be a time where Brad was just about
20:15
the only Telecaster you've heard on
20:17
country radio and otherwise it was all
20:20
you know rock guitar sounding stuff and
20:23
again nothing wrong with that but it was
20:25
just kind of like we kind of I guess
20:28
that was you know good and bad you know
20:29
we were you know Brad was unique so Brad
20:33
had this idea for a t-shirt to sell and
20:36
he said I wanted to say keep it country
20:43
you bastard and then have a fish with
20:47
doodoo okay so I know I was there for
20:52
this conversation and I was there on the
20:54
bus when Brad talked to the road manager
20:57
that was also doing merchandise and and
21:00
I heard the phone conversation between
21:03
the road manager and the t-shirt company
21:06
and he starts talking to me until they
21:08
had a bad connection because road
21:10
manager starts putting his finger in his
21:12
ear and goes yeah and then put fish with
21:14
dude oh so I don't know if you can tell
21:18
where this is going but two weeks later
21:21
you know t-shirt shows up says Brad
21:28
Paisley gone fishing and then on the
21:34
back it says keep it country you bastard
21:37
but they also wrote out the fish would
21:40
do two is just supposed to be it's just
21:44
supposed to be a fish with doodoo coming
21:46
out of it but they actually wrote fish
21:49
with doodoo
21:49
so there you have it this is a
21:51
collector's item it's I don't know if
21:55
there's any others I think the rest of
21:57
them were burned
21:57
and are destroyed in some way so yeah so
22:01
that was a fun one that was a fantastic
22:03
moment because it was just it was like a
22:06
bad comedy routine so I hope you've
22:10
enjoyed this episode of ask Zach we had
22:14
you know hope you had fun I did and I
22:18
hope you will subscribe I hope you will
22:20
share this with others and I just thank
22:23
you so much for watching and I hope you
22:25
have an amazing week bye bye