Neal Casal nealcasal.com
Chris Robinson Brotherhood www.chrisrobinsonbrotherhood.com
Hard Working Americans www.thehardworkingamericans.com
Circles Around The Sun
Skiffle Players (with Cass McCombs)
Phil Lesh And Friends
Gospelbeach
Photo by @scarlet_bucket (Instagram)
How long have you been a musician? How did you get into it in the first place?
I started playing guitar in 1981. I was obsessed with the Rolling Stones and the bands I saw in the Gimme Shelter film. Seeing the mysterious image of Jorma Kaukonen hunched over his hollow body really did something to me. I heard the slide solo on the Get Yer Ya’s Ya’s Out version of “Love In Vain” and that was it, my path in life was set. Hearing and seeing these things inspired me to become a musician and make a life of it. My grandfather had been a professional drummer all of his life, so music ran in the family.
Who have been some of your major musical influences, past or present?
My guitar influences started with The Stones. Keith, Mick Taylor, Brian Jones, and Ron Wood all figure into my electric playing. The art of two guitars weaving together is my ultimate aim. I learned this early by reading interviews with the Stones guitar players, and the Beatles, too. Playing by myself doesn’t interest me much at all, it’s all about the two guitar relationship, that’s what I find exciting. The Grateful Dead and The Allman Brothers are two guitar bands that had a major impact on me as a kid. Two guitar forming one voice and disappearing into each other. The great west coast psych bands also left a lifelong impression. The Byrds, Love, Moby Grape, Quicksilver, Buffalo Springfield. Hippie bands, that was where I started. Then I learned the simple, but sophisticated art of how to strum an acoustic guitar by endlessly watching a VHS tape of Jackson Browne in an early 70’s concert.
But my influences are very wide and I listen to all kinds of music obsessively. I can’t play jazz at all but I love to listen to it. Jim Hall, Johnny Smith, George Benson, and Lenny Breau come to mind. Gabor Szabo is another guitar player whose music I can’t live without. I listen to his records more than almost anyone. The Sonic Youth song “The Diamond Sea” will always be one of my favorite guitar songs. My mind brain burned clean when I first heard that. I love Eddie Hazel for his fire, and JJ Cale for his restraint. Ry Cooder and Lowell George, the slide Gods. I loved Aerosmith’s damaged drug guitar years. “Draw The Line” was the first record I ever bought in a store, and it still destroys me whenever I hear it. In the early 90’s the playing of Gary Louris, J Mascis, and Jay Farrar helped me reconnect to core values.
And, over the past couple years, I’ve really been getting into Manuel Gottsching, a brilliant player. The Ashra record “Blackouts” is for me, one of the best guitar records of all time. There are such great players around currently. Jessica Pratt, Ryley Walker, Nathan Salzburg, Clayton Linthicum, Emmitt Kelly, they’re all out their doing fantastic work.
Then all of my favorite acoustic players from the past, it’s a long list. Doc Watson, Clarence White, Norman Blake, Robbie Basho, Dick Rosmini, to name just a few. Then the English guys are just mind blowing in their depth, ability, and knowledge of history. Davey Graham, John Renbourn, Wizz Jones, Michael Chapman, John Martyn, and of course Bert Jansch. It’s endless inspiration.
Peter Buck sat in with The Hard Working Americans the other night in Portland, and we were reminded of how selfless and economical his brilliant playing is. Always in service of the song, which really, is all we should ever be.
What drew you to using pedals initially? Have you been using them throughout your playing career? How have pedals helped to shape your sound, or influence the style that you’ve created?
I started with pedals in the early to mid 80’s. The first one I bought was the Boss DM-2 Delay. I don’t know what happened to it, wish I still had it. I would get stoned in my room and regenerate that delay for hours. I also had that light blue Boss Chorus, and a black one with orange letters that was a heavy distortion. But back then it was hard to get pedals to work well for me, so I shied away from them. Cables were shitty, batteries were unreliable, pedal technology wasn’t very far along, and I wasn’t that smart about it all. I’d read about Bradshaw rigs in guitar mags, but they were way out of my league, so I abandoned everything except my Roland Space Echo, which I still have. I became obsessed with English blues players (Green, Kossoff, Taylor, Clem Clemson) who relied on their hands to get their sound, and that was how I operated for many years. A purer sound was what I was after. A return to basics after some of the mindless excesses of the 80’s. I grew up in New Jersey in the 80’s, so the metal years were damaging. I felt the urge to plug a guitar straight into an amp, and leave it that way. I saw photos of Delaney And Bonnie and their guitar cables never even touched the floor. I sought to emulate that. I bought a great Gibson Howard Roberts Fusion model that I wish I’d never sold. Les Paul Juniors, SG’s, non-master Marshalls, that was my thing. I had Plexis and JMP’s, a Super Bass or two. They came and went so easily then. I’d buy them out of the paper and sell them again when I needed rent money. If I’d only known!
Photo by @joncornickimages (Instagram)
Later on, I got into Fenders and Vox and changed my sound entirely, and my interest in pedals began to increase along with the improvements in technology. I got a gold Klon in 1999, and I never played a gig without it until I finally retired it from live duty a couple years ago. I still use it for recording.
These days, we’re in the golden age of pedal technology, and I’m completely into studying them and experimenting. Finally liberated from archaic limitations, pedals are tremendous companions in tone shaping. Building the right pedalboard is like building a great guitar or amp, it becomes an instrument unto itself.
They very definitely help shape my sound and style these days. I do my best to use them in a musical way and make them sound seamless and not like I’m using pedals at all.
What’s your current setup look like? Take us through your pedal rig (feel free to include amps and instruments as well if you’d like):
Jordan Rigg at JRIG Pedalboards built me a board a couple years ago that Chris Robinson named “Sputnik”, for it’s myriad flashing lights. Kidd Candelario, who builds our cables, calls it “The Aircraft Carrier.” It’s not that big really, but it does catch the eye.
My signal first hits a Sarno Black Box, a great tube buffer, then it goes something like this:
1. Dunlop bass wah (I prefer a bass wah on guitar)
2. Three Leaf Proton Envelope Filter
3. Bear Foot Pale Green Compressor
4. Bear Foot Honey Beest Overdrive
5. EarthQuaker Devices Terminal Fuzz
6. Catalinbread Octapussy
7. Bear Foot Baby Pink overdrive
8. EarthQuaker Devices Arpanoid
9. EarthQuaker Devices Grand Orbiter Phaser
10. Strymon Orbit Flanger
11. Strymon Lex
12. Catalinbread Valcoder
13. Catalinbread Belle Epoch
14. Catalinbread Montavillian
15. Catalinbread Echorec
16. Catalinbread Topanga Reverb
It’s all running through a Divided By 13 FTR 100, or a Booya Custom 100 watt amp. A Divided By 13 2×12 cab loaded with Celestion Creambacks. A Divided By 13 Switch Hazel allows me to switch between the two channels on the amp. I have a Road Rage true bypass looper that has worked up beautifully and cleaned up my tone. My main live guitar is a Santa Cruz Model by Scott Walker Custom Guitars, loaded with Lollar High Wind Imperial pickups. I also use a newer Fender Telecaster with a B-Bender.
Favorite type of pedal (drive, delay, fuzz, etc. – more than one answer is always acceptable!):
I like the excitement and unpredictability of a good fuzz, the sound that started it all. Some of my favorites are the Earthquaker Devices Terminal, the Catalinbread Octapussy, the Greer Super Hornet, and the Bearfoot Effects Candy Apple Fuzz.
And then of course there’s delay, can’t get cosmic without it. I still love my old Roland Space Echo RE-150, I’ll never part with it. Between the Montavillian, the Belle Epoch, and the Echorec, Catalinbread cover a lot of ground with their delays. I’m also really digging the Chase Bliss Tonal Recall.
You’re stranded on a desert island – which three (3) of the following do you want to have?
Instruments: My Scott Walker Santa Cruz, my 69’ Gibson SG, and my 1958 Martin D-21
Amps: My 63’ or ’64 (forgot the year) blonde Fender Bandmaster, my 1970 Fender silver face Deluxe Reverb, and my 65’ Princeton Reverb
Pedals: Gold Klon, Catalinbread Montavillian delay, Bearfoot Pale Green Compressor
What’s up next for you/your band(s)?
More touring and more recording. I’m very fortunate to be in a few groups that are thriving at the moment, so I’m just getting deeper into music every day and trying to further what i’m doing. Pushing myself off cliffs into deeper waters, and appreciating the good things coming my way. That’s it really. More of what I’m doing now is all I really need.
Photo by @scarlet_bucket (Instagram)
I’ve had a gold Klon since 1999 and it opened the gates for me. I played probably a thousand gigs with it, and it’s made countless records, so I’m in the “love” crowd.
Any last comments, promos or anything you’d like to talk about?
Here are 51 albums, in no order of importance at all, but simply a list of some great guitar records…
1. Harvey Mandel – Cristo Redentor
2. Davey Graham – Folk, Blues, And Beyond
3. Baden Powell – Tristeza On Guitar
4. Peter Walker – Rainy Day Raga
5. Wilburn Burchette – Guitar Grimoire
6. Robbie Basho – Bashovia
7. Fairport Convention – What We Did On Our Holidays
8. Gong – You
9. Spirit – The 12 Dreams Of Dr Sardonicus
10. The Byrds – Dr Byrds And Mr Hyde
11. Pat Martino – Baiyina (The Clear Evidence)
12. Albert Collins – Truckin’ With Albert Collins
13. Gabor Szabo – Bacchanal
14. Doc Watson – Elementary Doctor Watson
15. Ashra – Blackouts
16. John Martyn – London Conversation
17. Snooks Eaglin – The Complete Imperial Sessions
18. Terje Rypdal
19. David Crosby – If I Could Only Remember My Name
20. Sonny Sharrock – Black Woman
21. Otis Rush – Mourning In The Morning
22. Ron Wood – I’ve Got My Own Album To Do
23. The Staples Singers – Great Day
24. Pentangle – Solomon’s Seal
25. Jesse Ed Davis – Ululu
26. Jimmy Dawkins – Fast Fingers
27. Funkadelic – Cosmic Slop
28. Royal Trux – Thank You
29. Nic Jones – Ballads And Songs
30. Mel Brown – Chicken Fat
31. John Mayall – A Hard Road
32. John Renbourn – Sir John A Lot Of
33. Johnny Guitar Watson – Listen
34. Bert Jansch – Rosemary Lane
35. Howard Roberts – Color Him Funky
36. Eddie Fisher And The Next One Hundred Years
37. Dick Rosmini – Adventures For 12 String, 6 String, And Banjo
38. Curtis Mayfield – Sweet Exorcist
39. Mighty Baby – A Jug Of Love
40. Free – Fire And Water
41. Dadawah – Peace And Love
42. Country Joe And The Fish – Electric Music For The Mind And Body
43. Norman Blake – Back Home In Sulphur Springs
44. George Benson – Bad Benson
45. Canned Heat – Hallelujah
46. Humble Pie – Rock On
47. Ernest Ranglin – Guitar Ska Roots
48. Moby Grape
49. Jerry Garcia Band – (live record released in 1991)
50. Souled American – Notes Campfire
51. Sandy Bull – Fantasias For Guitar And Banjo
Thanks so much to Neal for taking the time to answer some questions! Make sure to go check out nealcasal.com, as well as the rest of his killer musical projects listed above. Cheers!
UPDATE 5/11/19: Got the chance to meet and hang out with Neal yesterday, before a brilliant Circles Around the Sun show here in Asheville at the Grey Eagle. We chatted for a bit, then I got to get on stage and take some pics of the gear he’s using for this tour, including a borrowed Fender Super Reverb, an updated pedalboard and his beloved Scott Walker Santa Cruz guitar. Thanks for the hang, Neal, cheers!
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