What do Staten Island and Allston have in common? – Keyboardist and effects guru Brian Hamilton. Brian records and performs with the Richmond County quartet, Cymbals Eat Guitars, who recently released their third album, Lose. Brian is also well regarded in the pedal scene for his smallsound/bigsound creations. And it was here in Allston where the rocking and the inspiration for his first pedal design originated. We caught up via internet tethered communication devices to discuss his formative years around Allston, his latest foray into delay pedals and how crafting a song and creating a new circuit aren’t all that different. Read on! And be sure to catch Cymbals Eat Guitars this Friday at the Paradise.
Stompbox Sonic: You spent your formative years in Boston, attending Berklee College of Music, playing in bands such as the Bon Savants. How would you say your time here influenced your approach to music making? And pedal building?
Brian Hamilton: I started playing piano about a year-and-a-half before I came to Boston and Berklee, so I was like a sponge soaking up as much influence, technical know-how and inspiration from those around me at the time. Luckily, when I came to Berklee I had a very diverse group of friends who played and were interested in all types of music and I just wanted to play with all of them. For the next few years I was regularly playing in probably 10 different bands ranging from jam/funk to shoegaze to post-rock to jazz to an improvisational laptop trio. I think that all of that helped to foster an ability to adapt to new situations and focus on how to contribute to a project to make it more complete – I guess just being a good “team player” and bandmate. As for pedal building, my good friend Jordan Levantini (of Last Ave Amps in San Francisco, CA) taught me everything about soldering and schematic reading and helped to inspire a fascination of all things electronic. Boston is really where almost everything started for me in my life.
SBS: If I’m not mistaken the bassist of the Bon Savants had something to do with the inception of your Team Awesome! Fuzz Machine.
BH: Indeed. I was living in New York at the time and it was about a year after I left Bon Savants. Dave approached me about simplifying his setup, which I believe involved a Boss LS-2, an EQ pedal and an EHX/Sovtek green russian big muff. I explored many existing fuzz and bass fuzz designs and my main design goal was to create a heavy fuzz with a clean blend that seemed to meld the two signals together, rather than simply having a fuzz “floating” on top of a clean, sort of like a mosquito buzzing around. There weren’t many pedals available at the time that did that so I felt like it was something that other folks could get into as well and so far they have.
SBS: The clean blend feature is such an incredibly useful addition. So many fuzzes are all-or-nothing, this adds another element of control over one’s sound.
Now that you’re based in Philly are there any old haunts in and around Boston that you miss? Any place you make a point of visiting when in town?
BH: I miss a lot of things about Boston. It’s such a diverse and beautiful city with a lot of different neighborhoods… The first things that come to mind are the giant purple house I lived in on Ashford St. (Castle von Buhler), going to shows at Great Scott and following them up with hangs at the Model and the Silhouette, the indian buffet across the street from the main Berklee building. Mostly the little things that seemed like no big deal at the time but shaped so many relationships and friendships. The 5 years I was in Boston I always lived in Allston (both upper and lower) and loved being close to tons of house shows and Bagel Rising but I equally enjoyed the community in JP, the arboretum in the spring and fall, riding bikes along the river, walking everywhere… There aren’t any places in particular that I make a point to see anymore since things have changed and friends have moved so mostly I try to see people I miss.
SBS: These days you play keys with Cymbals Eat Guitars. You have a new record out, LOSE. And small sound/big sound has a new pedal, No Memory. This is a very unique modulated delay, limited to only 50 units. A departure from the dirty mayhem of your other pedals, how did this effect come about and why so few in existence?
BH: Up until now, smallsound/bigsound has only focused on dirt pedals, but of course it is by no means the only thing I am interested in. I have lots of projects that I am constantly thinking about or refining ideas for and an oddly modulated delay is just something I have been playing around with for years. With LOSE, I was originally going to release a chorus pedal since Joe started using a Boss DC-2 about a year ago. I started prototyping ideas and it turned out to be too complex a project to include the feature-set that I wanted so the delay was my backup plan. In the studio with John Agnello, we were using a bunch of tape echoes (WEM copycat, Fulltone TTE) and there were certain qualities inherent in them (the instability, filtering and the way the controls interact) that i wanted to capture without necessarily trying to build a clone of any of those units since a lot of companies already do that. It’s limited mostly because of my current time constraints and the idea that it is nice to have something special. That being said, I plan on doing something else with the ideas in the relatively near future.
SBS: As a keyboard player do you approach the use or crafting of effects differently than someone that comes at things from a guitar or bass background?
BH: I’m sure it’s different but it’s difficult to say how since I think very hard about how my pedals will react with all types of instruments. I tend to like lots of controls for things, so maybe that directly comes from playing synthesizers and things that have knob-per-function layouts?
SBS: I’d love to learn more about your approach to designing a new pedal circuit. Any parallels to working out a new song or the process of recording an album?
BH: Oh sure it is! You have a catchy riff or chorus but maybe you can’t figure out a bridge or the verse vocals and you just sit on that idea for some time. Hopefully later on you’re working on something else that you’re stuck on and try the ideas out together and you have a song! Obviously it doesn’t always work out that way but some of my pedals have definitely come about in that fashion. Patience is key!
SBS: The graphics on yours pedal are quite eye catching. Having spent some time with the Buzzz and Team Awesome!, I must say the artwork matches the sounds quite well. Is it safe to assume the look of your pedals is as important as what is going on inside the pedal? Are you the artist?
BH: In my humble opinion, the artwork is just as important as the circuit within a pedal. Most people see a pedal before they hear it and if it already conjures up thoughts about what it sounds like, then I feel like I have been successful. I have had friends do some designs in the past and I have a great screenprinter named Dan at Juxtaprints in Philadelphia who does all of my printing, but other than that I do it all.
SBS: It seems like a pretty exciting time to be in the pedal biz with many interesting designs and sounds coming out. Some pay homage to the classic circuits and then some far out, boundary pushing effects. Do you have a good rapport with the young gun pedal building community, folks like Fuzzrocious, Earth Quaker Devices, Dwarfcraft, etc?
BH: It’s felt like the golden age of pedals for the past few years and as digital circuitry gets more accessible, I think it will only get more exciting. I’ve had the pleasure of becoming friends with a lot of great builders – Fuzzrocious, EQD, Dwarfcraft, Death by Audio, Mid-Fi Electronics, Caroline Guitar Co., Old Blood Noise Endeavors, Dirge Electronics, Fuzzhugger, Catalinbread… many that I’m forgetting right now of course.
SBS: Cats! You’ve got em, you love em. Any thoughts on the proliferation of cat videos or dressing them in costumes? Just let them do their thing.
BH: My girlfriend and I have two white and orange turkish vans named Zolaska and Miss Mabel Elaine. We don’t even think they’re actually cats, they’re just so weird and amazing.
SBS: I hear you. I feel like some cats are actually strange beings in cat suits. Their behavior and mannerisms are clearly not mere felines. Any advice to aspiring pedal builders?
Don’t give up.
Cymbals Eat Guitars & Bob Mould perform Friday September 12th at the Paradise.
