Weekly Interview 7/20/16: Sean Williamson

Sean Williamson
Milwaukee, WI, USA
seanwilliamson.net
twitter.com/thesituation

Sam Llanas – samllanas.com
Velocihamster – velocihamster.net
Shonn Hinton & Shotgun – shonnsshotgun.com

Photo by Greg Vorobiov

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

David Gilmour has been a hero of mine since as long as I can remember, and was my inspiration to begin playing lap steel guitar, but like so many others my age, my playing was molded from studying the rudimentary genius of Nirvana. Copping the licks of Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Mark Knopfler, EVH & Trey Anastasio soon followed, and as my musical & listening palette became more diverse than just the mainstays, I got into all sorts of guys that should have just as much notoriety as the former like Danny Gatton, Reb Beach, Steve Morse and Jerry Douglas. More recently, guys like Derya Nagle, Jeff Loomis & Misha Mansoor have kept me just as honest & inspired as when I started.

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 suppose you can predict the trajectory of most guitarists’ pedal careers starting with the date they get their first Boss Metal Zone, and subsequent resale of that pedal back to the store. A rite of passage, the tones that come out of that thing don’t even deserve to take up space in a used pedal bin, but they speed up an invaluable learning curve in evaluating, troubleshooting & shaping tone from the stompbox level. My Metal Zone made it a few months, and was hastily exchanged for my first Ibanez TS-9. Soon after that, I was experimenting with other overdrive & distortion pedals to boost the first one, then adding delays & phasers, and after my first stereo chorus, I was hooked for life. All hail Metal Zone!

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):

Well, the signal all starts with EMG pickups but after that my signal hits a Keeley Looper & Compressor, and when the looper doesn’t go directly to my Bogner Duende amp, the signal is instead routed to a TC Electronic Polytune Mini, old Digitech Whammy II, Pigtronix Disnortion, Analog Man “Silver Modded” Ibanez TS-9, Providence Stampede DT, Boomerang III and a Pigtronix Class A Boost. Some gigs I’ll add a MXR MC-404 wah.

Favorite type of pedal (drive, delay, fuzz, etc. – more than one answer is always acceptable!):

Judging by the fact that my board has essentially 4 distortion pedals, I’d have to say Overdrive/Dist/Fuzz. There is just never enough room for gain shaping.

You’re stranded on a desert island – which three (3) of the following do you want to have?

Instruments: My Signature Morrell “SW-Custom” EMG 57 loaded lap steel.
Amps: Anything with Bogner on the grille.
Pedals: Boomerang III, so can at least “play with myself.”

What’s up next for you/your band(s)?

A busy summer of gigs with Sam Llanas, Shonn Hinton & Shotgun, and Kyle Feerick, and recording material for my new project Velocihamster, the world’s first introduction to metal on lap steel… dubbed more formally, Slidecore.

Klon Hype: Love it or Hate it?

I love some boutique pedals, and I don’t like others. For every brand entering the game, they’re a boutique pedal when they start. Hindsight is always 20/20 with stuff everyone wishes they bought when it originally came out. My view is if it sounds good to you, it doesn’t matter what diodes are inside.

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

All this talk about pedals makes me wonder why everyone doesn’t have an Option Knob on their board. Being a lap steel player that uses a bunch of FX, it’s hard to make live adjustments, but enter Option Knob, and every single box on my board has its own expression or volume pedal. These things are great & take the proverbial “awkward bend over” out of a live set. If you’re not convinced, I’m out @ the Winter NAMM show demo’ing for their booth every year so stop by & pick one up.

Also, I recently had the privilege to do a live session on EMGTV in Santa Rosa and during soundcheck I was introduced to Providence Pedals, more specifically the Providence Stampede DT. Very versatile pedal that let me do blues-rock stuff & metal with the turn of a few knobs. True Bypass, made in Japan…pretty cool.

Thanks so much to Sean for taking the time to answer some questions!
Make sure to go check out http://seanwilliamson.net, and this rad video below as well. Cheers!