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 Mathieu Pascal (Gorod).
When you start bass playing and do you remember your first guitar?
My first guitar was a classical guitar my mom brought back from holidays in Spain when she was young. Not really a genuine guitar, more like something coming from a gift shop. At least it still has six strings that could be tuned correctly. At the same time I was starting music and saxophone lessons, that bored me somehow because I couldn’t play when I wanted (like drums, brass instruments are very loud whatever you do!). Guitar was much more practical, and since I begin listening to rock music, I just quit saxophone and fell into guitar instead. I remember I changed the nylon strings for electric guitar strings in order to play my fav rock songs. A few months later my dad offered my first electric guitar, and a small amp of course. It was a Hohner „Rockwood“, a shitty Strat copy, but it was so cool to be finally able to play with distortion!
What are your influences and which guitar players are your favs?
As a beginner I liked Guns n Roses and Slash, and later Metallica. I tried to learn every song of both of those bands but I wasn’t skillful enough for most of the leads of course! But it’s the discovery of Marty Friedman albums „Scenes“ and above all „Dragon’s kiss“, that really push me to work hard on my instrument. That became, and still is, my goal as a guitar player. I love the speed and intricacy of this music, but also the exotic and ethno vibes in it, this man is constantly surprising and I still have goosebumps when I listen to these albums. Besides, my first serious guitar was a black Jackson PS6T (Kelly model), Then obviously I found out about Jason Becker and Cacopohny, and later all the 80-90’s guitar heroes, Malmsteen, Vai, Satriani, Mac Alpine, etc… Later a friend of mine introduced me to Al di Meola 70’s albums (I remember the first time I heard him, I was convinced that it was early recordings of Malmsteen ahah!), that became one of my main influences, not particularly for his style of playing but for the music itself.
How many guitars do you own and what are your favorite models?
Wow I can’t be sure for the number, around 20? Mostly electrics, but I also have classicals and some basses. I hate selling guitars so it just piled up over the years. But almost each one has its own role, even if I have to admit there are many that I don’t regularly touch. During the lockdown in 2020 I started to build my own instruments and it became my favorite hobby, so there is at least one more guitar that piles every year! For a long period my favorite was a Squier Telecaster, the first guitarI bought with my own money, for something like 200€. With time I enhanced electronics with a Humbucker at the bridge so I can cover several genres. That’s crazy how this guitar is easy and comfortable to play, and sound so perfect for an instrument this price. For my 40s i bought myself a US Fender Telecaster and honestly even if I have to admit that it sounds good, as it should do, it has a lot of issues wich make it not so pleasant to play, and not so versatile. But I won’t sell it anyway, maybe sometime I get the necessary wisdom to appreciate it!
What do you think makes the perfect guitar and amp?
I can’t agree more with Barby, the instrument is as perfect as the performer. I never played on any actual bad instrument, once you are used to it you can always get something out of it. But indeed, it’s hard to pick a guitar that would be perfect for everything. I have the feeling that really great guitars are designed for only one purpose, like my US Tele I told about earlier. I think a guitar designed for all purposes will be averagely mediocre. Now that I build my own guitars, I can choose every detail, shape, electronics, everything is designed with my personal specs, nothing more and nothing less. Moreover, as I can make as many as I want, I try to build specialized guitars, for metal of course, but for any other genre I want to approach. Speaking about the perfect amp, personally I never heard something better for me than my ENGL Thunder head. The way it respond to my playing is perfect. I had and tried a lot of other brands and models, but every time playing with this head is way more enjoyable to me. For 10 years now we use Amp Sims for obvious practical reasons, but I admit that I had a lot more pleasure playing with this very amp on stage, and so far none amp sim had achieve this same feeling when you are playing right in front of a guitar cab.
Which guitars and amps were used on the new album or for recordings?
For the most aggressive parts I used my LPish guitar, with Lace Deathbucker at the bridge, for the crunchy parts I built a 7 strings Tele with 2 single coils pickups (I can’t quote the brand, they’re like the cheapest 7 strings single coil pickups that I found, probably chinese). It’s funny how many different sounds you can get from them with the different wirings. And I like the twangy roar, especially with distortion. For some songs I used the recorded DIs from the demos when they were clean enough, and just recorded the parts that have evolved to save time. Then everything passed through my ENGL thunder head, 2×12 V30 cab, and Beyerdynamic M160 mic. As I said, in many occasions we tried other amps, but when we compare tracks, everybody here prefers the ENGL among the others.
When you only can choose one guitar, which one will you take?
You mean like on a desert island ? I think I’ll go for my Squier, because I know I could play in every style I like with it, and it’s the guitar I enjoyed the longest in my life.
