Pitchshifter's Jim Davies
The Deviant British axeman blurs guitar's sonic boundaries on Pitchshifter's latest disc
by Jeff Perlah
August 22, 2000
'When you pitch down a whole octave while using that DigiTech Whammy pedal, it sounds so sick -- like Satan's playing the guitar -- and that's quite a nice thing.'
Cover art for Pitchifter's latest disc morphs two famous faces. |
The cover of Pitchshifter's new album, Deviant (MCA), offers a strikingly subversive portrait of two establishment icons: Pope John Paul II and Queen Elizabeth II. The two famous faces are lumped together into one head, and the painting by Gee Vaucher -- onetime denizen of anarchist punk band/collective Crass -- in a way illustrates how the British band molds its innovative sound. By blending propulsive hard rock (parts metal, part hardcore punk) with sample-heavy electronic dance music (mainly techno and drum 'n' bass), guitarist Jim Davies and the other core members, vocalist/programmer J.S. Clayden and bassist Mark Clayden, have forged a sonic and lyrical hybrid that's at once radical, weird, and altogether catchy.
On their 1998 DGC/Geffen release www. pitchshifter.com (also -- surprise -- the name of their website) the band's drum 'n' bass leanings overshadowed their heavy-rock inclinations. Deviant turns the tables, highlighted by guitar-dominated tunes like "Condescension" and "Wafer Thin."
"On this one," Davies says, "we went for more of a 'song' approach. The [electronic dance music] is still there, it's just not as noticeable." Much of the album's guitar-centric attitude was abetted by all-star producer Dave Jerden, whose A-list résumé includes Alice in Chains, Jane's Addiction, and the Offspring. "He's a real guitar man," Davies points out. "He really came to life as soon as the guitars came out."
Pitchshifter's music has evolved considerably since the band cut grittier and grindier records for the indie extreme-metal label Earache (1992-1996) and played keyboards with fire axes and sledgehammers in concert. But, as Deviant so aptly demonstrates, their shift towards a more polished sound has made them anything but sedate. Harmony Central caught up with Davies the day after he and his bandmates had attended a drum 'n' bass dance club. "I'm still actually recovering," he laughs. "So the day's been a bit slow." Things picked up, however, as he discussed the band's music-making secrets.
Deviant is full of unusual sounds and arrangements: How long did it take you to make this record?
It was actually quite quick, as records go. The recording process -- me and Jon actually writing the songs -- took about three months. We recorded at El Dorado Studio in Burbank, California, with Dave Jerden, and that took [another] three months -- altogether six months.
Dave Jerden's got quite a résumé.
Yeah, he's done some amazing bands. He did both Alice in Chains records, he did the
Dirt album, a really good record. He did all the Jane's Addiction albums. Offspring. The guy is in his 50s; he's quite a mad guy. It was cool. He knows his stuff; he's been doing it a long time.
What did he bring to the guitar work on Deviant?
He didn't actually change anything, but he had a few ideas. You hear a riff on the intro to "Wafer Thin." I originally had that in the song only once as sort of like a middle section, but Dave said, "That should be the theme of the song." He also had a hell of a lot of gear: A lot of amps, a lot of things to play with.
That intro has some unusual sounds. Is that guitar?
I got a [DigiTech] Whammy Pedal [see HC review] and used the octave divider setting. You move the pedal and the guitar goes down in pitch a whole octave -- as opposed to going up a whole octave, which is what a lot of people use the whammy pedal for. You can go up an octave and get that Tom Morello "Killing in the Name Of" sort of solo. It's also really good for de-tuning, and we're about detuning. When you pitch down a whole octave while using that DigiTech Whammy pedal, it sounds so sick -- like Satan's playing the guitar -- and that's quite a nice thing.
On that intro, there's actually a normal guitar playing, and then there's a de-tuned guitar, a bass, and also a six-string bass -- which is almost like a guitar; you can play it like a guitar. That intro is multi-tracked to make it sound as thick as possible.
"Condescension" is one of your catchier tracks. What were you doing with the guitar on that song?
That was actually the very last song we did. I was getting to a point where I was running a bit low in ideas, and that riff is one of my favorites on the album. The intro riff itself is just a really, really over-the-top chorus sound with a wah -- two effects I use quite a lot. I think it's the most well-written song on the album because everything works: The verse, the chorus sound good, a nice middle-eight. I think that's a good example of when you write an album over a period of months, you get better at it. Even though that's the first song on the album, it was actually the last one we came up with, and by the time, we had actually pretty much nailed the process of writing a song like that.
Next Page: Sonic Agenda, Gearing Up....
Jeff Perlah is a New York-based writer and editor. When he isn't chasing down rock stars, Jeff's the managing editor of Car Stereo Review 's Mobile Entertainment magazine
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