Joe Halliday
Hampshire, UK
Hello Sailor Effects
hellosailoreffects.weebly.com
How long have you been a musician? How did you get into it in the first place?
I’ve been playing guitar for about 15 years, I always wanted to learn but never really picked one up until after I’d joined the Royal Navy, a couple of guys onboard my first ship started to learn and the rest is history.
Who have been some of your major musical influences, past or present?
Well, initially, I was really big on The Eagles, my parents bought me an old Sony Walkman cassette player when I was 7, the only tape I had was “The Eagles Greatest Hits” copied from my dad, I think I wore that damn thing out ha. Now, I loved The Eagles but something magical happened when I was 10 an first listened to Oasis “Don’t Look Back in Anger.” Every musician will know what I mean, it’s a thing that just happens when you hear a certain record for the first-time, you feel as if your whole life has changed in a second. For a long time after that epiphany from Oasis, I completely went off music (drugs/drink/wrong crowd).
Years later after joining the Military, I “had” to take my younger brother to see The Coral play in Liverpool – long story short, he was too young to go on his own and I drew the short straw. The Proclaimers opened and they were great, but when The Coral started playing “Dreaming of You,” I was blown away! The song is driven by this bass line that shouldn’t work, but it absolutely does!
In my adult life I’ve gone back in time with my musical tastes, around 10 years ago I was flicking through channels on the tv and I happened across Free Live in BBC Manchester just as Paul Kossoff played the first chord of “All Right Now” it hit me in the chest with a thump! Still to this day I think that’s the best ever recorded guitar tone, it’s also my favourite song.
Most recently I’ve been really into ZZ Top (I’m turning into my dad ha) “Brown Sugar” is just something special, what a tone and Billy Gibbons has such great dynamics! It’s soft and polite then bang he digs in an it just goes rawk, I love it and the guy has to be the coolest dude on the planet, right?
Sorry if I rambled on here, I tend to get excited talking about music!
What led to the start of Hello Sailor Effects? How long have you been in business?
The name Hello Sailor Effects comes from my actual day job – I’ve been serving Queen and Country in the Royal Navy for 16 years now. I chose “Hello Sailor” over something cool and edgy like “Sailors’ Grave Effects” purely because of the very drunken tattoo I have on the front of my left shoulder (queue drunken sailor jokes). Tthis tattoo has now become the Hello Sailor Effects badge.
I’ve been building effects pedals under the name Hello Sailor for around 8 years – in the past I’ve gone through periods of building, then life has happened, work has been crazy or some other excuse that made me stop. Now fast forward to the present day and my last operational deployment: I spent nine months away from home onboard a war ship without a lot to do in between keeping watches and working. I became addicted to watching a show we have in the UK called “That Pedal Show,” and it just inspired me to give this pedal malarkey another go. This time round it’s kind of just taken off, and I’ve even managed to get a Kossoff Drive into the hands of the guy who owns Paul’s ’59 burst.
Hello Sailor Effects isn’t a company or a business, I’m certainly not the next Brian Wampler (I’m absolutely one of his fanboys, though ha, seriously go read his book “How to Modify Effects Pedals,” it’s awesome). I’m just a guy who loves creating unique one of a kind effects pedals. Are they perfect? No, absolutely not, but if you want something a bit different or customizable then look no further. Also, you won’t have to sell a kidney to afford them. All of my pedals are built one at a time by myself, apart from the odd style interjection from my 11 year old son, that is.
Did you have formal schooling, or are you self-taught? Take us through that story:
I do have an Engineering Degree that I’ve achieved through the Navy as part of my job. I’m actually a mechanical engineer specializing in refrigeration, although my current draft is teaching hydraulics in the Royal Naval Engineering School. As you can see, not a lot of that is useful for building effects pedals (well, not unless you want your germanium fuzz face refrigerated ha). I got interested in electronics when my first valve amp broke (Orange Tiny Terror). I armed myself with a multimeter and set about bringing it back to life, and it was so much fun I thought “I’m going to build myself the ultimate boutique point to point amp.” To get there, I decided to start by building an effects pedal or two, which turned to three and so on… I still haven’t got round to that boutique amp ha ha.
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 absolutely love boost, overdrive and distortion. All of the pedals I build that are not direct clones come in some form of drive pedal. When I first started, I’d go with something I knew I liked and add to it, put the input buffer from this, the clipping circuit off that, etc…
Sometimes a pedal design takes no time at all and others can take months or longer. Let me give you some recent examples:
There’s an artist called Everything Joseph who contacted me looking for a drive pedal to end all drive pedals, 4 footswitches to control boost, overdrive, distortion and an active EQ. I worked on this thing for such a long time! I was away on operations in my workshop onboard trying to get what I thought would suit his playing style and the description of what he had in his head (I think at this point he already owned two of my pedals). Now if you check him out, you’ll see he’s using a pedal called “The Thunderchild” and it’s an absolute beast! He came up with this really great concept based on the “War of the Worlds.”
Conversely, I sent an Anchor Drive to a mate of mine to demo on YouTube, he loved the pedal (even if he did describe it as batshit crazy) but thought it would sound better with less gain. I set about on lowering the gain, before I knew it I had changed that much it was a completely different pedal (keep your eyes on the flippinflippers podcast as they have prototype #1 of this pedal).
I’m just as happy building one of my Kossoff Drives as I am building a Dynacomp compressor clone, or even both in the same enclosure. If you have a pedal in mind, I’ll try building it.
What are some of the biggest concerns facing your profession today?
I could do without another Falklands war, not a great time to be in the Navy. Seriously, though, as far as building effects pedals, I really don’t have any concerns – I’m one of the “boutique builders” saturating the pedal market, after all.
Where do you see pedal building going in the future?
In the future, I’d like to keep growing the Hello Sailor fan base. I have 6 years left in the military to build the brand before it’s my full time job, it’s a dream of mine to do this full time. I want to get my pedals out there and show people that great sounding and looking effects don’t have to cost as much as your car.
Who are some of your favorite builders in the industry right now?
Oh wow there are so many! Obviously Brian Wampler, Robert Keeley and Mike Piera spring to mind, but here in the UK guys like Rhys Stubbs from Bigfoot Engineering and Simon Andrews of JSA effect pedals. Simon does the craziest discrete op amp redesigns of classic pedals that are just so awesome.
Name the last 5 records you listened to:
1. ZZ Top – ZZ Top
2. Zander and the Peace Pirates – 11:11
3. Supersonic Blues Machine – Californisoul
4. Queen – Greatest Hits 3
5. Biffy Clyro – Only Revolutions
The Klon hype: Love it or Hate it?
Love it! Great sounding pedals, although if I had the money to buy one, would I? No, I’d probably go buy a RYRA clone and pocket the considerable change.
Any last comments, or anything you’d like to talk about?
I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has bought one of my pedals. Also, I’d like to say thanks to Jacob Logsdon (@the_visual_guy) and Andrzej Marczewsky for the testing out and reviews they have done of my pedals.
Thanks so much to Joe for taking the time to answer some questions! Make sure to follow Hello Sailor on Facebook, and check out THE WEBSITE to peruse all of their gear – Cheers!
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