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Hi this is Chris from Music Radar and we're here at the Barfly in Cardiff to check out
proud rockers Oceansize and find out what gear they use live.
[music]
Let's kick off then with the first piece of Oceansize's wide screen rock puzzle. Mike
Vennart the bands singer, guitarist and front man.
>>This is a Night grenade 5 Squire Strat, it's like a, I think they call them niece
series it's from one of the old Japanese ones that they used to make. Luckily my Mam bought
me this for christmas when I was like 11 and I'm considerably older than that now, it's
still ticking, it's amazing. It's actually died quite a few deaths over the years, but
I've put new pickups in this, like this ones a DeMarzio and this is Ibanez and this crappy
old bridge that's like from a Marlin. It's just like a really really acoustically loud
guitar, I have nightmares every week that this gets stolen or it gets burnt in a house
fire or something, it's just an amazing guitar. There was one really good instance where we
got a really good running relationship with Fender and they've been really helpful to
us all over the years, because it's pretty hard to actually get good quality left handed
instruments, there was one instance where all my guitars had gone down a tall and I'd
rung them in a panic asking if they'd help me out and they said yeah sure, we've got
a left handed strat, that Jeff, that we got sent to Jeff Beck the other day and Jeff Beck
didn't want it because he's not left handed obviously so I got that which was pretty cool.
This is where all the fun stuff is, this is the whammy wah, this is like an old 90s pedal,
I've got a couple of these because they keep breaking, I think they're just made for the
studio but that's got like all the auto wahs, whammy effect is something that I use an awful
lot just for texture and I use it a lot in delay and other stuff and it sounds really tasty. It's got
some other stuff on there like an auto-wah that filters and stuff like that. This black
star thing is my new distortion, it's like a tube distortion, it's got like a British
side and an American side, so you get that really sort of, it's a bit metally maybe but
it's pretty cool. The standard RAT for the horrible sort of fuzzy stuff. This is, this green guy
is build your own clone Russian green big ***, I've had a lot of big muffs over the years,
I think we've all got one of some description but the green ones are the best it's just
enormous, really really fat and full. And this as well the chunky cheese, this big orange
fella is OLC circuits it's a clone of a Love Tone big cheese, I'm a bit of a Pavement obsessive
I really love Steve Malkmus' guitar sounds and he got this, I found out that's what he
uses a LoveTone Big Cheese and it's like a, it's like that velcro kind of thing so it,
the whole sound sort of breaks up and disintigrates but doesn't feed back. And I've got the Line
6 filter modeller which is, I use that for synth sounds and horrible swells and string
pads and stuff like that, there's a lot in it but most of it's pretty tasteless so you
have to use it quite sparingly. >>In addition Mike uses three Boss delay pedals,
a DD3 digital delay marked space, a DD6 and an old school analogue DM2. Also on his pedal
board are a EHX nano small stone phaser, a Boss TR2 tremolo and a TU2 tuner. Next let's
check out Gambler's equipment. >>The SG that I made myself about 12 years
ago, I can't remember what spec it was, 68 SG that I made at part of a college course,
didn't think it would last this long but it seems to be doing alright. Shallow 2 in 1
pickups we call them, I did have the whole kind of 2 volume, 2 tone but ripped it all
out and just put a master volume and a call tap in there, it's a bit ragged around the
edges. >>It's seen a lot of action.
>>Yeah it has yeah. Pedal board, basically I've got all important tuner, don't leave
home without it, I use the amp distortion mostly but that's my main kind of distortion
but I've got a big *** clone, the best distortion pedal in the world the Fab Tone, cheap and cheerful
but makes a horrific noise, a whammy, a tremolo and the delay, if there are any delays
that are in time they're usually mine becuase you can set the tempo on the delay, so if
there's anybody in time it's usually me! It's a Laney tube head GH50, it is a really good
amp, clean sound, really spikey, it's not a really warm sound I think it's in combination
with these pickups they can be quite brittle sounding sometimes but the distortion on these
amps is absolutely amazing haven't found a pedal that can equal it yet. The only problem
is the gain channel hasn't got a volume control, so if anyone from Laney is watching
it would be the perfect amp if the gain control had a volume. Yeah just on songs I use an
electric piano, organ and I think there's a zylophone on there as well, I think the
3rd album frames we used a lot more keyboard, think I was sat down through most of the set
when we were touring Frame, the new stuff I'm back to the guitar a bit more.
>>Next up the 3rd and final part of Oceanside's 3 pronged guitar attack Steve DuRose.
>>Yep this is my Gibson Les Paul, I've had it since, I think I probably bought it in
about 96 new so, it's getting old, I wish it was older only time will make that happen
I guess but it's what I've used all the time, I occasionally use a strat as well just specific
tunes but this is my all rounder and I just love the thickness of the clean sound and
also just the real grunt to this back pickup here, kind of suits me perfectly really.
Ok so this is my board, you might think it's wired quite strangely and that's basically because it
is! I've always had my pedals in certain places and so as I've progressed in buying more of
them I get the order right so I don't want to move them because I've gotten used to the
dance move that I need to do you know! So yeah basically this is my main distortion
pedal, I've got 2 actions, this ones the heavy one, this one's my basic crunch and the big
*** obviously a bit of a signature to our noise so this one yeah gets pressed maybe
2 or 3 times in an entire set just as a bit of a shocker. Small Stone as well Electro Harmonix, that's
a classic pedal, this one's a re-issue but they still sound really really lush, this
ones more cut in fading, you don't really want to mess with this too much because it's pretty
hardcore and a little cheapey Dan Electro here which has served me well, I've fixed it about
50 times and so that's my tremolo. I use a compressor every now and again, usually with
the Small Stone, that, combined with the compressor can give a really thick, valvey texture to
any picky parts you're doing. This is basically a delay modeller so you've got loads of different
types of delays, analogue delays, digital delays, ping pong delays. Vox wah, this is
a classic, this is my second one now I had the other one for about 8 years and it died
finally so I replaced it. this is an original old Swall pedal from the 70's which is still
alive thank god. Well this is my Laney GH100 that goes through a standard Marshall 4x12
this is a great little amp this especially for the price, they're relatively cheap and
you get a really chunky nice distortion sound and also an absolutely lovely thick clean
sound that really cuts through. >>Not only do Oceansize have 3 guitarists
but they also have 2 Steve's, here's bassist Steve Hodson who's weapon of choice he rescued
from a skip. >>Got a Gibson Grabber, fairly old, way older
than me. It was actually found at a school in a skip by a friends Dad, I managed to swindle
him out of a really nice bass for £200. Pedal wise I don't really use much, I used
to have the distortion but it's too much to think about really. So that's the most important
thing, gotta have a tuner. A distortion pedal is, I'm in a mosho band and octive pedal for
heavy bits and then this beauty here it's an Akai head rush it's a delay pedal and a
looper pedal it's amazing, everyone should have one, or two, everyone should get two!
Then I play through a Nashdown Evo 900 and a matching cab, I got a cheap deal from them,
I tried it out really liked it, it's just a really smooth, nice sounding amps.
>>Finally drummer Mark Herron explains how he came up with his unusual drum set up.
>>I dreamt it up, as cliched as it sounds, I had a dream that I was playing a kit with
a high hat in the middle and I just drew the circles and set about making a pedal that
would acommodate it, which was like a middle pedal, a Sonar middle pedal but I didn't know
they made them so I managed to bastardise an Iron Cobra Pearl Power Shifter and I came
up with a double *** middle assembly thing, which worked for a while then I got the Sonar
now I'm back to an offset kick, I used to have it cetralised but I used to break the
bars too often, the extension bars it's terrible, so I couldn't afford it, so I had to go back
to a normal double kick. >>I guess it means no support bands can share
your kit either >>Yeah that was quite handy! It makes you
out to be a bit of a s**t though but when they see it and realise it's not just me being
precious about the kit, to dismantle and re configure the kit is just too much of a pain.
>>If you want to hear all of this kit in action visit Oceanside.co.uk or follow RealOceanside
on Twitter for daily updates from the studio as the band record album number 4.
>>I think one of the main incentives for doing this tour was to get some new material up
and get it so it's just fresh in our heads, we know how to play it, then we're going to
go straight from the last gig and just start recording the next day I think. I always think
that doing one gig is like doing 10 rehearsals and so we've got our own studio so we can
just slam it down and we're planning on handing the record in in May which just thinking about
it just makes me nervous and hopefully it'll be out in September.