Phil Pendergast and Ben Hutcherson of Doom Metallers in Denver talk about honing their tone, covering Alice in Chains and the pedal "sacred inspiration" moments that appear when recording a new LP, Deceiver

In their fourth studio album-titled Deceiver and will be released this month-Denver doom metal musician Khemmis is tapping into the most devastating guitar sound of their career to date. 

For Phil Pendergast and Ben Hutcherson, who can both play guitar and sing, the main sound comes from pairing their customized Flying V Dunable guitar with the Orange amplifier they have been using since 2018...

"It was the keynote that we added Dunables to the joystick verb," ​​Ben explained. "We are all playing Dunable Asteroids made by Sacha Dunable in Los Angeles. He is the guitarist/singer of Intronaut and founded the company about six years ago. He has made several absolutely first-rate custom guitars for each of us."

It turns out that the idea of ​​investing in custom instruments was not Ben’s original idea, although when his first instrument arrived, he quickly realized that it would not be the last...

“I’ve never had a custom guitar before because I always feel that I’m a bit fickle in terms of gears. If I like it today, I won’t like it tomorrow! [laughs] It feels a bit scary to spend all the money and promise to buy one. But I I have to tell you, as soon as the goods arrive, I understand why people go to custom shops. All this makes sense to me. The guitar is exactly what I want.

"My main body is a mahogany body, with a tree-section maple top and ebony fingerboard, and Bare Knuckle pickups. I started working with them last year and put a black dog on the bridge. As it turns out, What I've been hearing in my mind for 15 years is the sound of Black Dog on a mahogany guitar...I just don't know! So I have that on the bridge and have cold sweat on my neck."

"I started joining this band with Reverend Volcano," Phil added. "It was V that got me started. There was a Gibson guitar. Both are pathological guitars, but as time goes by, we want some guitars with longer scale lengths. Even when it is turned down like us, Fender The extra inches of the neck also help maintain string tension. 

"We played Intronaut before, so our friend Sacha made some longer scales for us. I really want a Les Paul that looks like Mick Ronson from Ziggy Stardust Band, so I’m in Mahogany The maple panel has a natural finish on it. I drew him a picture of what I wanted and it looked exactly the same. It’s impossible to do this with ready-made Gibson."

So are you two using Bare Knuckle pickups now?

Hutcherson: "Yeah! Phil used Riff Raff on the bridge. Compared to my low and medium focal lengths, it is louder and has more focal lengths. I like the way Oranges is between distortion and blur. This natural midrange is like a guitar in the mix. 

"Over the years, I have tried many different enhancements. For this album, I chose EarthQuaker Plume. Mode 3 of the pedal has something to tighten the Rockerverb, but does not change the tone characteristics too much... It just emphasizes I want more. The good thing about Rockerverbs is that they are very versatile." 

When we got the Dunable guitar, we ordered the completely opposite color scheme, the two of us did not discuss

A common misconception is that orange amplifiers are only suitable for dark blue and classic/stoner rock...

Hutcherson: "I know! People often mistakenly think that orange is just for that or rough fuzzy tone. But, I mean, Slipknot's Jim Root uses them. You can do many things with these amplifiers, it depends. What do you use to enhance them and what kind of cab you encounter. 

"As for the cab, we used the same one that we have used on everything-this magic orange 4x12, which I have owned for 12 years. It has X-mode V30 and WGS ET65 speakers. These specific speakers Some things are combined and they are really broken, which sounds great. This is the main rhythmic tone."

Pendergast: "I use Xotic EP Booster. It is very simple. It has only one knob. It is based on the Echoplex preamplifier. We found the best point on the knob. It can boost the amplifier enough to increase some gain and driving force. It won't make things messy."

It is widely regarded as one of the best "always on" pedals...

Pendergast: "Yes. This is how I use it. Even on a clean channel, it sounds great between Dunable and Orange. What's interesting is that we all placed orders with Sacha, But it has been kept secret. When we got the guitar, we ordered the perfect color scheme, and the two of us did not discuss it. 

"There are some pictures of us on the Internet...Oh, this sentence may be taken out of context. [laughs] We saved most of our content for OnlyFans! But seriously, it seems to be talking about the transcendental creativity I shared with Phil Connect. People sometimes say they love each other so much that they finish each other's sentences. Well, Phil and I finished each other's improvisations!"

Your view of doom is more metallic-closer to bands like The Sword than to the dark Stoner fuzz of Electric Wizard...

Pendergast: "We have all listened to a lot of metal, but none of us have really heard of doom. [laughs] We are more influenced by classic heavy metal and rock, such as the priest Judas, the iron maiden and the metal band, and some death metal And black metal." 

And, unlike many other doom bands, there are also some shredded moments in the mix.

Hutcherson: “I really don’t think about the guitar hero itself anymore. So it’s always interesting to know how I got here. I think a lot of shred stuff comes from Necrophagist’s Muhammed [Suiçmez] and his sense of composition , Used the neoclassical shred in a way that doesn’t sound like masturbation. It’s more like an extension of what he’s already doing...

"People may be surprised when they hear that our inspiration comes from a technical death band, but the excellent songwriting and guitar performance transcends genre boundaries. Trey Azagthoth [Morbid Angel] is another big man because of his sense of wording The way he combined symmetrical semitones on the fretboard was "wrong", but it told a story that playing on the scale did not work. 

"Then Billy Gibbons! You may not associate him with shred, but he knows the importance of finding the right note among 1,000 good notes, which is what I have been trying to do."

I practiced a lot during isolation, sitting there holding a metronome and studying hand coordination, string skipping and pick tilt. All the things I should have started early, hey, 36 is the new 20!

This is the art of storytelling, right? Mr. Gibbons certainly has enough stories to tell...

Hutcherson: "That's right. Guitar solo should help build the story of the song, not someone's turn in the spotlight. I discovered metal in the anti-guitar solo era in the late 90s, so I always prefer to combine solo The idea as the center of the song, not a platform for writing the song as a solo. Anyone can learn to play quickly...

“I’m not saying it’s not difficult. I practiced a lot during isolation, sitting there with a metronome, studying hand coordination, string skipping, and pick tilt. All the things I should start doing earlier, hey, 36 yes The new 20! Good lead singers contribute to the song, and this is always the focus."

There is also an art to the rhythm of your improvisations-they sound different if they don't have that slow, moderate drag...

Pendergast: "Our improvisation is based on feeling, and you can tell when it works. We try to make the song lively-you may be at some point in the song and it needs something more open. 

"So we will come up with a slower improvisation, and other parts of a song may require some faster rhythm and more aggressive things, such as the opening of the first track on the record or the end of our place. An improvisation of the lyrics of a song wants more driving things. 

"Those improvisations reach about 160bpm, so we occasionally go there, but this is the exception rather than the rule. It gives us more dynamics. The feeling must be correct if it means our default settings are in the middle A certain position-it gives us a place to slow down or speed up."

Is this a conscious thing or did you find that your improvisation just came out like this?

Hutcherson: "This is usually something we didn't think about. We picked up the guitar and started writing for this band. Its frequency was in the range of 90 to 110 bpm. Intuitively, this was the right move. Of course we have had some At the moment, we notice that things may be pushed too fast or dragged for too long, but these are exceptions-every 15 improvisations require us to adjust the rhythm. If it feels like the iron lady is trapped in a tar pit, Then we did it right!"

Pendergast: "It's all about the feeling, so we might not use the typical downstroke—there is a fun way to push the music forward. It's not intentional; it's just our natural feeling."

Hutcherson: "It also comes from our classic rock side. Compared with modern music, all the big rock songs of the 60s and 70s tend to be slow. It allows some interesting rhythmic things to happen, especially the guitar. 

Three years ago, if you asked me what a dotted line is, I won't tell you. I didn't think about theory that way

"About our music, one thing I recently discovered is that we play frequencies with dotted notes. We do a lot of things on harmony, from low-tempo improvisations to harmony lines. Three years ago, if you ask me I won’t tell you what the dotted line is. I didn’t think about the theory in that way. Now I can analyze it and trace it back to ZZ Top and Thin Lizzy because these bands are deeply ingrained in our DNA."

What other pedals did you use in your new record?

Hutcherson: "There is a delay pedal, The Ambience, which is made by a small boutique company called Mr. Black in the Pacific Northwest. This is my favorite pedal I've played, regardless of classification. This is also our producer Dave Otero The only delay pedal that allows us to record, because he always delays in the later stage so that the speed can be synchronized. Going back to [the second album in 2016] Hunted, I told him that I want to use that pedal in a certain part, he said, 'Wow, this thing sounds so good, I can't help but use it! 

"So this finally appeared in this record, either in the typical effect loop or in the front, creating this cascading wall of whirlpool noise for the main line of the long melody. Phil was really inspired at that moment and jumped to it. On the floor, and I’m tracking to change all the parameters while I’m playing. 

"What he did at the moment of divine inspiration was the lens we used on the album. It only worked on that pedal. I couldn't find a setting that didn't sound amazing."

Pendergast: "We also used Shepard's End flange, which is another pedal of Mr. Black. At the end of the last song, it is the lead part of Ben. It sounds subtle, but it adds this psychedelic edge."

You sang Down in a Hole for the Alice In Chains tribute album [Dirt (Redux)] released last year. By changing some chord movements and the overall sound performance, you really make it your own...

Hutcherson: “I think it’s a waste of time to play directly on the screen because the original is already there. If you want to sing karaoke, go to the bar and do it there. Of course, the original version is amazing. That album is the best I have ever One of the five good albums. So in order for us to allow time to learn it before we disassemble and record it, we have to be fair. We want to pay tribute to this song. Every cover should do it, but we did it. Things that the original artist did not expect. 

"If someone covers a Khemmis song, I hope they will take it to the stratosphere and do some crazy things. We have chosen piety-not to make it an unrecognizable thing, but to enter a different Headspace, subtract heroin, and convey that feeling. The kind of despair produced by the colors of our paintings, treat this song fairly, instead of buying the exact same G&L that Jerry [Cantrell] used to perfectly replicate it. "

Pendergast: "We want the cover to sound like ourselves. It should be an illustration of who we are... almost like a song written by ourselves. This means adding a funeral doom part after the first chorus, because We think this song can go there and bring some black metal into the bridge part before the last chorus. If this is our song, we will do it. You got this great set of lyrics and chord progressions, so Accept it and explain it as you wish!" 

For more than ten years, Amit has been writing for Total Guitar, MusicRadar and Guitar World. His main influences include Richie Kotzen, Guthrie Govan and Jeff Beck. He interviewed everyone from Ozzy Osbourne and Lemmy to Slash and Jimmy Page, and even had a solo deal with members of Slayer in an internationally released track. As a conference guitarist, he played with members of Judas Priest and Uriah Heep of the London Metalworks Orchestra, and handled legends such as Glen Matlock (Sex Pistols, The Faces) and Stu Hamm (Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, G3) Lead guitar.

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