Joe Anastasio
San Marcos, Texas
Lone Wolf Audio
www.lonewolfaudio.bigcartel.com

How long have you been a musician? How did you get into it in the first place?

Been messing around with guitar and bass for over 20 years, but only really got serious after high school when I bought a high end P bass. Then I started playing guitar shortly after, so I play both.

Who have been some of your major musical influences, past or present?

This is a bit of an odd answer which people will find amazing and confusing. I mostly only listen to Frank Zappa and international punk/death metal bands from the 80s/early 90s with a handful of other bands but mostly I only listen to that stuff. Occasionally some synth stuff like ZOMBI and TIMECOP1983, but it’s mostly Zappa. I don’t care for classic rock or this doom stuff, it’s not musically engaging to me, nor does it have anything to say I care to hear.

What led to the start of Lone Wolf Audio? How long have you been in business? How big is your operation/how many employees do you have?

I had a business before this, Enormous Door, which is still a mastering studio but we teamed up to start an effects division that got a ton of steam, but I decided to leave due to it not going the way I wanted it to. I’m still friends with the main guy there, but the other people involved are pretty terrible people who took advantage of us and it was pretty sad. I saw the writing on the wall and quit my own business I moved halfway across the country to start. A few months later after they closed up shop, I announced I was back as Lone Wolf Audio, by myself with no one else involved (aside from my girlfriend who is now my wife and the only other employee). That was about 3 years ago, and once I went full time, I haven’t stopped since then.

Did you have formal schooling, or are you self-taught? Take us through that story:

I went to school for mechanical engineering and have a formal education in 3D CADD design, which I never use. Biggest waste of time in my life was college/school. The pedal thing I am self taught in, which came through me building a few kits and modifying them. Then that led to me making my own products. That was about 6 years ago now.

What drives you as far as new pedal creation is concerned? How long does it typically take for an idea to come full circle and become a demo pedal? What’s the process behind new gear, and the eventual release of it to the public?

I come up with about 50 new pedal ideas a month, and maybe 2 of them become a reality that same month. Then I test them and tweak them until I’m happy. Then, all of a sudden I won’t be happy and I’ll scrap it.

Take for example our biggest seller, the Left Hand Wrath. I had been working on a 6-knob modded HM2 since 2012. Then when I was at Enormous Door I released the first incarnation, the LHP aka Left Hand Path to pretty high reviews, but then I left that behind shortly after. I finalized my idea for the design and made the Left Hand Wrath as the finalized version, which has seen 4 revisions throughout the last 3 years to keep cloners and thieves at bay, and boy, people try. Last year I released the deluxe version which adds a clean blend, a 10-position frequency depth and a sub-mid control, which has been a pretty big seller as well.

On another side, you have the Hypnotic Eye variable stage phaser. That’s been in the design stages for about 4 years now and I finally released it. It’s a 100% analog 4-12 stage phaser with a rotary even/odd stage selection switch for all the stages in between, which has never been done before this. That means you can choose 4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12 stages at any time. There is also a dual speed footswitch and a heavy fuzz in front which sends it into a realm of insanity unattainable until now.

There’s more coming in 2017, which will push the boundaries like this……including a full Modular synth/Eurorack set of modules.

What are some of the biggest concerns facing your profession today?

Oversaturation and too much of the same, as well as a very large facade that alot of people put on. It’s no secret everyone is after being the next big thing in the pedal world. Whether its through blogs, social media spectacles, industry brown-nosing events, acting like friends to your face then attempting to stab you in the back the first chance they get, etc.

I personally see no honor or glory in being the face of a business if you arent the one designing the product, or lack the ability to even build said product. That’s both dishonest and lacking integrity. This business isn’t Hollywood, with the red carpet and the like but a lot of people treat it as such and I don’t like that. It’s a business for pioneers and guys who make resistors, capacitors and transistors do things they normally wouldn’t in new and exciting ways, not a business to treat like a high school drama club.

Where do you see pedal building going in the future?

Hopefully away from the same overdrives and fuzzes cloned 900 times already, and the trend of being a social media driven business and not a product driven business stops being a thing. Its limitless in its potential, but its held back by its own pretentiousness I feel like.

Who are some of your favorite builders in the industry right now?

I can give you a list of people who I really like and support in this business:

John Snyder of Electronic Audio Experiments
Mark at Black Arts Toneworks
Patrick Emmons at Abominable Electronics
Matthew Dunn at Dunn Effects

These 4 guys are the ones pushing the boundaries, and not just building stuff for scene points. They are creating the scene around their products.

Name the last 5 records you listened to:

1. Dog Soldier – At My Throat
2. Warfare – Mayhem Fucking Mayhem
3. Frank Zappa – Guitar
4. TIMECOP1983 – Reflections
5. Dismember – Death Metal

Klon hype: Love it or Hate it?

I don’t like the fact that everyone made a fake clone off a bad schematic a few years back and claimed it was correct for a cash grab. I make one that’s pretty accurate and I reverse engineered a silver Klon personally to make it for a friend who prefers it to a real one now. It’s like anything else, though there’s always going to be the next big thing.

Currently, it’s the FV1 digital reverb train. Next, it’s going to be a modified DOD Gonkulator, or something, you can never tell. All you can do is do what you want to do and not do things based on market trends because thats a surefire way to shoot yourself in the foot. You have to create the next big thing, not copy it.

Any last comments, or anything you’d like to talk about?

I am currently hard at work on expanding into eurorack/modular synth gear. A few modules are done and awaiting the faceplate panels. I have a bunch of new stuff up on the website for 2017, and more planned for the future.

I do want to say this, everyone should buy and support who they like in this business. Don’t fall into the message board and forum hype, misinformation and trash talk. It’s counter-productive to everything as a whole. Life is short, make yours count.

Thanks for the chance to answer a few questions, and give people an insight as to how I feel about some things.

*Joe Anastasio

Thanks so much to Joe for taking the time to answer some questions! Make sure to go check out lonewolfaudio.bigcartel.com to peruse all of their gear – Cheers!

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