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00:00Hi, I'm Josh from Get Down All Services.
00:03I'm here with guitar.com and this is My Guitars and Me.
00:13My brother played guitar.
00:15He got some new speakers and he played Ball and Biscuit by White Stripes,
00:19who I knew, obviously I knew Seven Nation Army sort of heard it and that,
00:22but I was like, that sounds mad. What's that?
00:25Especially the solos in that song, it's just like...
00:28I just couldn't believe it was a guitar maker.
00:31I remember thinking it sounds like a horse or something,
00:33and that sounds like he's making it sort of whinny.
00:37And I remember when my uncle, he showed me how to play Hey Joe
00:42when I was like 11 or 12.
00:43And then I was like, oh, I could do notes.
00:46There's notes, you just have to play all the strings at once.
00:48I haven't really progressed in theory since I was about 15, I don't think,
00:52but still going.
00:55Maybe 14, I started playing in other bands and stuff,
00:57but I wasn't one of these kids who was playing guitar at school.
01:00And that was, it was like, I don't think a lot of people even knew I played guitar.
01:02It was kind of, it was like a thing I just was doing on my own.
01:06I don't know if it was shyness, but it was just like a private thing.
01:09It's always been kind of solitary for me, music in general,
01:13but guitar playing especially.
01:14I was playing bass in the first band, moving it until it sounded,
01:18moving the sort of finger positions until it sounded like it was in the right key, basically.
01:21But the White Stripes was always a huge one.
01:23It's only later on that I realised that's how I know that,
01:25you know, the chromatic scale or whatever, pentatonic even, whatever it's called.
01:29I don't even know.
01:30I've learned all that through the White Stripes, I think,
01:33just copying what, you know, dead leaves in a dirty ground or whatever.
01:36That's the basis of all my guitar playing comes out.
01:38I didn't realise that until quite recently, because I went kind of disco-y for a bit,
01:42but I was kind of disco-y via this kind of quite limited knowledge
01:47of the pentatonic scale or whatever.
01:59The first proper band I was in, when I was writing my music, was a two-piece as well.
02:02It was me and Ben, you know, the other guy in Get Down Services.
02:05We were in a guitar and drums, two-piece.
02:08So he was big into the Black Keys and stuff like that.
02:11I was into the White Stripes, and so we sort of made this sort of beige,
02:16sort of West Country imitation of it when we were like 14, 15.
02:21Did that for a few years, maybe like 10, 15 years ago now.
02:25There was quite a garage rock, psychedelic.
02:28We were big into all that.
02:30That's why I got this guitar, though it wasn't this actual one,
02:33but it was like a flat duo Jets.
02:37It was like that.
02:38I saw that.
02:38I saw a clip of them playing.
02:40It looks like they're playing on a porch or something.
02:43Crazy Hazy Kisses, it's called, and I was like,
02:45that's the coolest guitar I've ever seen in my life.
02:46What's that?
02:47And then I found one in Bristol for sale,
02:52and looking back, it was the most stolen thing ever.
02:55So obviously still, it was like 50 quid.
02:57The bloke didn't know anything about it.
02:59He was like, yeah, there you go, mate.
03:01Cash, please.
03:03And then that was my only guitar for years.
03:06I just, I liked the look of it, to be honest.
03:09But I also just liked how small it was.
03:10It felt kind of like the Guitar Hero guitar.
03:12I kind of liked that.
03:13But that one I had was like a sort of sunburst-y red.
03:16And a couple of years ago, it got nicked.
03:18We got all of our equipment nicked at a gig in Manchester.
03:22And it was like, it's probably the only thing I've ever owned
03:24that I've had a bit of sentimental attachment to.
03:25So I was like, I'm not going to get another one.
03:28You know, I was like, that was my one.
03:30I'm going to move on to something else instead of trying to replace it.
03:32But then a couple of years passed and I was like, actually, I do quite,
03:35I really like the sound a lot.
03:37It's got this kind of insane jump in volume.
03:39It's quite a, in some ways, it's quite a hindrance.
03:43When you put it in a middle pickup and it's like twice as loud.
03:46But I kind of learned how to play a lot with that.
03:55Covid came and I wanted a new thing to learn.
03:57And I wanted to get an instrument where I was like,
03:58I'm actually going to practice this.
03:59So I picked up the banjo and it really, really,
04:03there's a really misunderstood instrument, the banjo.
04:05I realised that anyway.
04:06But it really jumped my guitar playing forward
04:09because I could do the sort of like roving thumb thing.
04:12And I tried to not get in the habit of playing the banjo like a guitar.
04:15I tried to pick up new techniques.
04:16And it's really changed my whole sort of thing with guitar.
04:20I'm kind of like a jack of all trades, really.
04:22I can't really do anything amazingly well,
04:25but I've just got a lot of different tiny interests.
04:26And it's about trying to like lean into those enough
04:29where you could take what you want from it
04:32and make it sound like you.
04:33But you're not like, you know, you're not trying to master it.
04:36You're just trying to take these little motifs and stuff.
04:39When we started the band,
04:41one of the things I wanted to do was not play guitar.
04:43I wanted to be like electronic or something,
04:45especially when the show started getting a bit kind of raucous.
04:48Because that wasn't really the intention at the start.
04:50Like we were just,
04:52we were kind of crooning and stuff at the start.
04:55And then it kind of went a bit chaotic
04:56and we started going insane on stage.
04:59Guitar is just a, if you're wanting to rock out,
05:03there's no better instrument than the guitar.
05:05It's the best thing for it.
05:07It's the best tool for the job.
05:08And it's a feeling I love.
05:09I've always loved just like,
05:11you know, you get in that zone,
05:12you're just like, heads going.
05:13You're like, ah.
05:14Once I started realizing I could do that
05:15and still do this kind of maybe disco-y, electronic-y stuff.
05:19I was like, oh yeah, I'll just do,
05:20I'll just bring the guitar out.
05:21Because I can play that.
05:23I can't really play keyboard very well.
05:25Or, you know, whatever.
05:25I can't really do anything else.
05:27It was a bit like,
05:28we got like three or four years into the band,
05:30and I was like, ah, I should probably play guitar
05:32because I can actually play that one.
05:34I can't sing, or really dance,
05:36or sort of, you know, do anything really.
05:39We just sort of have a go at it.
05:40But guitar can play a bit.
05:41Especially if you've got to a point in the set
05:43where like, the crowd are lucid up.
05:46They're all going mental.
05:46We're going mental.
05:48Everyone's sweaty.
05:49If you put the guitar up, you could really just like,
05:51you know, it doesn't really matter
05:52even what notes you're playing.
05:53It's just like a, it's just like a,
05:54it's almost like a prop.
05:56I'm not shy about that.
05:57It's not just a prop,
05:58because you know, I am shredding a little bit.
06:00But it's like another way of just sort of beaming energy out.
06:14One thing we liked about the band, especially live,
06:17is that we can be commanding because we don't have to play to a track.
06:21We could put all of our attention to like, trying to engage people,
06:25even if we do it through force, which we do a lot.
06:28Even if you're like, watch now, shut up, put your hands up.
06:31It's a real attack on people.
06:34I didn't want the guitar to get in the way of that at all.
06:36I didn't want it to be a distraction from that.
06:37It's another way of just sort of like, lightsabering people.
06:41It felt like such an inside joke, really, the band.
06:44It felt like a private joke between the two of us.
06:46Well, it's quite self-indulgent.
06:47We're just kind of doing what we want.
06:49It's weird that it's got to this stage to us.
06:52But the way we try and do it is we just try and shut out
06:55everything else that's going on, focus on reading the room,
06:59focus on being attentive to each other on stage, I think.
07:03And just like, gosh, go for it.
07:06Just, it's like, it's like three, two, one.
07:08We scream and jump around for an hour.
07:19We're supporting Harry Styles for a few gigs in Berlin in July,
07:23which is obviously crazy.
07:25I kind of, with that, I couldn't help but feel when it came out,
07:28there's a bit of a side note, but we didn't know who the other supports
07:30were going to be for the other gigs.
07:32Yeah.
07:32And it came out and we're supporting him in Berlin.
07:34Like Kylie Minogue, for example, supporting him in LA, I think.
07:38And I was like, if I was a German fan, I'd be feeling shortchanged a bit.
07:42I'm not putting ourselves down at all, but it's like,
07:46you know, in London, they've got tears for fears.
07:48And then in Berlin, they've got like two blokes.
07:50Like, it's like fair play to Harry for taking a big punt on us like that.
07:55But I'm not sure it's going to go down.
07:57We're going to try our best though.
08:08This is a guitar from Ancote's Guitars.
08:11I don't think I've ever loved an object more.
08:14When we were talking about Dave who made this,
08:16when we were talking about it, I didn't even want a volume dial.
08:18I just wanted like the most plain.
08:20But he was like, you should get a volume dial.
08:22I'm glad there was a growing up involved because, you know, it's really good.
08:25It plays so well.
08:26It's like my perfect guitar.
08:27It's like it's been made for me.
08:29It does everything that I like.
08:30It's got a lot of body to it, even though there's obviously just,
08:34there's just a bridge pickup made in Manchester by a company called Green Pickups.
08:38I like the double cutaway.
08:40I like that, you know, you can get really high up there
08:43because there's no pickup selectors.
08:44I'll put a kill switch in there and I was like, yeah, why not?
08:47You know, a button on the guitar is funny.
08:49It's just a, you know, it's just a funny thing to have.
08:51The famous kill switch bloke is Tom Morello.
08:55And I'm a big Rage Against the Machine fan.
08:57So I was like, well, you know, if it's good enough for Tom,
08:59maybe I'll do it.
09:00And I actually had just bought a real Gibson SG for the first time,
09:05just before I picked this up.
09:07Funnily enough, I bought the Gibson SG because I kept breaking guitars at gigs.
09:10I kept like dropping them and I kept just like, I just, I just like smack them.
09:13I kept breaking them.
09:14So I was like, I'll buy a real one and I'll look after it.
09:17And I'll buy, you know, it'll be a workhorse and add it for life.
09:20There's no exaggeration.
09:21We played it, I played it once on the TV.
09:24We did Jules Holland.
09:25Yeah, I played that.
09:26It's like, that's the only time I ever played that guitar.
09:29Because the next time I brought it out,
09:31it fell off a guitar stand on stage and just like smashed into pieces.
09:35See, I just would have thought if you spend a lot of money on a guitar,
09:37it wouldn't break if it like sort of, if you sort of blow it up.
09:42But yeah, it did.
09:42It smashed to pieces.
09:43But this, I've dropped it already.
09:46Like you can see there's like all kinds of like things.
09:48It's got everything I want.
09:49It's got the body to it, but also like you can, you can shred on it.
09:53It feels solid.
09:54Like you can, I like, I like guitars where you can bend the neck a little bit.
09:57You sort of feel like you can just sort of like really grab it and chuck it around.
10:02It's one of those things, every time I look at it, I just get happy.
10:04I'm just like, it's just such a funny looking guitar to me as well.
10:07Like the like weird pick, the weird pick guard and that.
10:11I don't think I want another guitar really.
10:13This is my number one for life, I think.
10:15He's really sorted me out there.
10:29That's probably the extent of what I could do without sweating.
10:33Thanks for checking out my guitars and me.
10:36It's nice to talk about my guitars.
10:38I've got an album that came out in August called Massive Champion on Breakfast Records.
10:42Listen to it.
10:43Listen to everything Breakfast Records have done.
10:45They are a great label.