Guitar Edge interview with John Rzeznik

From GuitarEdge.com

You're known as a guy who really likes to take his studio knowledge on the road. Can you tell us how you get such a great acoustic tone live?
Absolutely! The way I process my acoustic rig is pretty cool actually. I have three Chandler EMI panels with three EMI compressors. I have them set so one is sort of thin, one is a little more full, and the other is completely uncompressed—it's like low, medium, and high. Then it gets daisy chained through the three different DIs and sent out as three different signals to the soundboard, where my front of house engineer mixes the three different signals together, depending on the room and the song.

So you're using studio gear to get that studio tone live?
Totally. We've got a Digidesign Venue console live, so we use pretty much any vintage modeled unit. I mean, I can compress my vocals with a Fairchild 670 compressor and then use a Neve 1073 EQ on it. The abilities with that console are just limitless, and it's so exciting to use all of the great gear built into that thing.

What is your take on digital effects versus the natural approach when it comes to guitar tone?
I tried to use Guitar Rig 3 a while ago, but it didn't sound right at all—I don't care what they say. I think that when it's an extreme special effect, like crystallizers and that sort of thing, it's okay, but I'm kind of a purist when it comes to tone in the studio. I have buckets of pedals, probably 50 guitars and about 35 amplifiers that I use—just all kinds of crazy vintage and boutique stuff. I try to get a really awesome sound that way. On top of that, the microphones and the mic pres are just as important.

Do you have a specific go-to microphone and preamp?
Live, I'm a big fan of Heil's PR 30. In the studio I'll use the PR 30 and the [Shure] SM57 or the Royer R-122 ribbon mic. That Royer is a killer microphone! I just need to find a really patient producer, because we burn through them like crazy. [Laughs.] I also think we need to start taking the production into our own hands more.

Having all the amps and pedals you do, which ones stood out the most in the studio?
I used my 1x12 Supro Thunderbolt a lot and that thing sounds great! Effect-wise, there's a guy that is recreating actual perfect Rangemaster circuits and he builds maybe 15 or 20 of these pedals a year. I have one and that thing is ridiculous. We also used a Plush Replay delay that was really great. However one of the favorite amps I used was a '51 Park combo. It is one of the most amazing sounding rock amps I have ever heard.

With all of those options in the studio, do you drive yourself crazy trying to find the perfect tone?
No, I drive producers and engineers nuts because I'll sit there all day trying out different microphones, microphone preamps, guitar amps and guitars. They're like, "When the fuck is this gonna end?" and I'm like "When it sounds right." [Laughs.]

What was your approach coming into Something for the Rest of Us versus the band's last record, Let Love In?
The last record is very much a situation where we were working with an all-encompassing producer, you know? I wanted to take more control of what we did sonically on this album with guitar tones and all that. When we built our studio in Buffalo, I was telling the studio designer to just think Zeppelin drums. When he was done, I knew he had totally nailed it.

With the way the music scene has been changing and labels pushing harder than ever, did you have to deal with any outside pressure while making the album?
We're doing it the way we want to do it and hopefully people will dig it. There was some back and forth with our label about trying to get us to work with different producers, and I was like, "Why would we work with that producer? They make Britney Spears records!" I started to get frustrated because I was like, "Have you even listened to my band? Do you know what's going on?" We worked out our differences, but still.

This album has some songs that speak from the shoes of others. Is there any song in the album that really stuck out to you because of the story behind it?
Yes, there's a song on the album called "Not Broken," and I pretty much got that song from a conversation that I had with a woman about her husband who was in the Iraq War who was injured and didn't want to come home. He was permanently disabled and felt like she wouldn't love him as much as she did before he left. The song feels like I'm writing a letter from him to her. It's okay to come home, because you're still loved.

What's your "gear that got away" story?
Oh man—it was a JCM800 and I loved that amp so much. A long time ago we were playing at CBGB's in New York, and before the show we ended up going to the record company's office to do some things. We parked the van and had a guy sitting in it to watch the gear, but he left the van and went around the corner to go get a slice of pizza or something. When he came back, everything in the van was gone. That amp ... maybe I'm just romanticizing how great the tone was, but it was just beautiful.

Looking back at your long career, is there anything you would have done differently?
I think back in the day we rushed to get a record deal, and we ended up paying out the ass for that. We grew up making all of our mistakes firsthand and ended up learning everything the hard way. We made a lot of bad business decisions, but that stuff happens when you're young. We recovered and made the best of everything that we could, and because of that passion we made it to where we are today.