Chris Masuak catches up with Australian Guitar to give us the lowdown on his new CD ‘Workhorse’ and his upcoming tour with The Hitmen, The Screaming Tribesman and Klondike’s North 40.

Photo by Richard Higgins courtesy of Craig Regan

With the new album Workhorse imminently on the horizon, can we look forward to another album of driving guitar rock music, or should we look forward to some flamenco-inspired riffs given that you’ve relocated to Galicia?
Funnily enough my mom wanted me to take up flamenco guitar when I was a kid and I spent most of my pre teens plunking along to records on a nylon stringed Spanish guitar.  But, no…we went for a more visceral electric performance. Loads of guitars through vintage amps! We deliberately under-rehearsed so that the playing was raw and spontaneous.

You’ve been touring France and Spain with Simon Chainsaw and The Outside – what’s been the response of the European audiences? Any significant differences to Aussie fans?
France, Germany, Switzerland, Spain…all over the place! European audiences are very receptive…they love, love, love their Rock n’ Roll! They often seem a bit bemused by us Aussie rockers while Aussie audiences are far more familiar with the drill…singing along, pushing the band, and squeezing everything out of you! But, we’re teaching ‘em!

Have you bought any new guitars since moving to Europe? What’ll you be gun-slinging on your Australian tours?
The French genius Luthier Roger Daguet is building me a signature model based on the old 1940′s “Kay” that I first played in Radio Birdman and which went AWOL long ago. It was an unsuccessful project of mine for some years until Roger decided I was finally good enough for one of his instruments!

This time round in Oz I’ll be using my old Robin Ranger, a fantastic prototype that I bought in Texas when I was helping Deniz Tek with his first solo album. I also have a reissue Ampeg Dan Armstrong that I was given by the company rep in Kansas City on the last Birdman tour.

Chris, you have some gorgeous guitars – do they go on tour with you, or do you have separate “road warriors” that take the beatings that touring can pay out?
The guitars I own are the guitars I play on tour. I’ll often take my Fender Custom Shop Strat, Gibson Firebird VII, and ’68 Ampeg Dan Armstrong with me cause I like to make a choice on the spot depending on how I feel.

Having said that, these days I’m often forced to take a pragmatic approach. The airlines don’t give a shit about musicians and clobber us with crippling excess baggage charges. So, it’s often just the Strat. It’s totally reliable and I seem never to break strings, anyway.

Being a connoisseur of great guitar sound, how do you capture your tone while recording?
For “Workhorse” we kept it all low tech…basically our live setup. We wanted to hear the character of the guitars…the wood and metal.

Red Porter used the bass he bought from Radio Birdman bass player Warwick Gilbert. A Fender Precision with various mid 60′s pieces. The pickups died on the first day of recording but fortunately he had some reissues on hand which were fantastic! He went straight into a Fender 300 head with two 4 X 10″ quad boxes.

I drove my guitars straight into my ’64 Fender Bandmaster, an early 60′s Vox AC30, my Fender Vibro KIng, or Ampeg Jet.

The engineer Greg Clarke lived up to his reputation as “audioboffin”, and set up a baffling array of mics and microphone preamps! I couldnt’ hope to recall what the heck they were!

But, the formula was typical…close mic, distant, and room. I didn’t want to think too deeply about my performance so relied on Greg to tell me when something didn’t work. He really pushed me hard to play off the cuff!

You can hear when a pedal kicks in for additional colour…like a wah wah or my Thunder Tomate silicon fuzz. Otherwise, it’s all fingers, strings, and tubes cookin’!

Having just finished recording an album, are you a fan of digital recording technology, or is it analog all the way if possible?
Well, the circuitry on the old analog tape decks was pretty crappy and the analog plugins these days can be rather amazing, so it’s a real trade off. And, drop-ins to digital is certainly less stressful than those heart stopping drop-ins to tape!

Is there any city, or venue that just feels like “home” when you play there?
I loved playing my residency downstairs at The Sandringham in Sydney. It was casual and way fun! The audience was very forgiving and it very quickly started to feel like a family affair!

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