This article series is about the tools of popular guitarists. What are their favorite guitars and how is it related to them? This time with Brian Tatler (Diamond Head, Saxon).
When you start guitar playing and do you remember your first guitar?
My older brother David had a semi-acoustic guitar when he was fourteen and I was eight. So from then on there was a guitar around the house. He brought an electric guitar when I was eleven but I didn’t really start trying to learn until I was late fourteen, early fifteen. I formed Diamond Head when I was sixteen so I must have progressed enough to be able to move a Barre chord up and down the neck and play rudimentary solos. My first guitar was my brother’s first electric guitar, he said I could use it once he bought a cherry red Gibson SG in 1974, My first guitar had a home-made SG style body in a dark brown wood with a fender-type neck. It had cost him £14 from a second hand store. It had a two pickups and a tremolo arm. I used to play it through Dave’s Linear Concord 30 watt amp.
What are your influences and which guitar players are your faves?
Again my brother was a big influence on getting me started. I looked up to Ritchie Blackmore and wanted to be able to play the guitar solo from Highway Star. At some point I realised if I am going to get good I had better start practicing every day. I copied lots of players like Blackmore, Schenker, Van Halen, Page, Kossoff, Iommi, Bill Nelson, Brian Robertson etc. More recently I have been listening to Joe Bonamassa, his technique is flawless. I have watched a lot of live performances on TV or YouTube to see who he does it.
How many guitars do you own and what are your favourite models?
I think I have ten guitars, and two basses. My favourite models are the Gibson Les Paul standard. I have a 1979 which I bought second hand and have been using on albums since 1995. I also have a 1996 and a 2002. I am using the 2002 on the road with Saxon at the moment along with my 2016 black Gibson flying V. I have used Flying Vs over the years, they look great and people like to see them but I prefer the Les Paul as it’s more solid and sounds better in my opinion. I still have my old white Flying V from 1979.
What do you think makes the perfect guitar and amp?
It’s the feel of the guitar and the sound of the amp. I have been playing some of my guitars for many years so they have a nice, familiar feel to me. I prefer the 60s profile neck on a Les Paul. I am not really a Fender player, I have owned and used Strats but mainly for clean, jangly parts when recording. In the past I have owned Marshall, Engl, Boogie, Fender, Orange and Cornford amps but now I am using Kemper as it’s so consistent and sounds better on the IEMs.
How do you feel about the question of modeler or tube amp?
Because I use Kemper now I am in favour of them. I don’t like the fact that they are very difficult to edit. It makes me feel stupid when I cannot change the parameters or store them. I am sixty three now and not really into tech. So I like the sounds but I don’t like having to learn how to use them, the online manual is four hundred pages long. You cannot beat the sound of a valve amp in a room or onstage but once I went over to in ear monitors and our FOH guy said he much preferred the consistency of the sounds, I was sold. Also no-one wants to take valve amps abroad so if I am flying with just my guitar its ideal to take a kemper with all my sounds stored than use a hired, festival amp that may not be very good.
Which guitars and amps were used on the new album or for recordings?
I don’t have a new album out yet. We have been writing a new Saxon album but we have not started recording it yet, although all the demos are done. The last album I recorded was the re-recorded version of the original Diamond Head debut album – Lightning To The Nations, and was released in 2020. A mix of real amps and plugins. We used the Driftwood mini nightmare, a Mesa Rectifier, Axe fx through Mesa 2:90 (think Friedman amp). We used Neural DSP and STL Tones plugins for guitars as well and an ISO box. I always use my 1979 Gibson Les Paul standard and sometime my 96 Les Paul or my 2002 Les Paul.
When you only can choose one guitar, which one will you take?
It will always be my 1979 Gibson Les Paul Standard. Its very reliable and has a great sound and feel. I paid £800 for it in 1995.
