The ax-man cometh

MANILA, Philippines - Ever wonder how Intolerant guitarist and ESP/LTD endorser Joey Dizon gets that blitzkrieg bop of crunch and grind in classics such as Death Toll Rising, Blunt Force Trauma, and God of War? Here’s the lowdown. 

Describe your guitar rig for Intolerant.

JOEY DIZON: I guess the best way to describe it is “stupidly simple.” Guitar, decent amp, tuner and noise suppressor… that’s it. Period. I want to play guitar, not tap dance and tweak. I’m pretty proud of the fact that even in the most horrible local clubs, I can plug in directly to the amps and not depend on a distortion box or pedal. I really worked hard on studying how to really lock-in on the perfect crunch sound with various amps, and, believe me, there were more misses than hits when I started. Intolerant and Skychurch both love to play loud, obviously, so the tuner is to quicken the process, and the noise suppressor to get the dynamics of the song really tight.

When the amps are really sad, that’s when I’ll pull out the trusty SansAmp or the DS-1, but 90 percent of the time, I leave ’em home. First of all, I hate carrying shit, next is I don’t want all these patches and cables messing up my space. So when something goes wrong, it’s easy to troubleshoot. I figured, if I wanted to keep the sound interesting, I’d just write interesting parts… instead of spending a few grand to step on some box that makes a spacey kind of sound and only use it once. I’m just not that kind of guy.

Lyric is kind enough to hook me up with Blackstar amps whenever possible, so I really don’t need anything else. What else? I use and endorse Elixir strings, gauge 10s since we don’t really detune our guitars. I don’t believe that heaviness comes from detuning. Pretty boring right? But I’m happy with how I sound now.

What specific guitars do you use — for gigs and recordings?

For recording, I plan to use the LTD EC-1000 for fat chunky rhythm parts, and the ESP Eclipse for my solos. Right now I’m using both guitars live, the Eclipse my main and the EC-1000 as backup, though I hardly need it since the Elixir strings are pretty tough. Both guitars have EMG active pickups, 81 on the bridge, 60 on the neck. No effects, just a tuner, a noise suppressor, and whenever it permits, I use the new Blackstar amps.

How do you plan your guitar parts with Russell? How do you guys harmonize your specific riffs and guitar passages?

When it comes to guitar parts, Russell has a lot of riffs stored, and I usually have a few parts for intros, verses or choruses. Unlike Russell who tends to write riffs of entire songs, I tend to develop parts — which come in handy for transition parts or again, intros. Though I did try to study the requisite Pentatonic scale and tried learning the other more unusual patterns, me and Russ tend to figure things out by ear and by gut… and usually, we both tend to know at the same time if something will or will not work. I guess that’s where the listening preference comes in. We listen to a lot of the same stuff, which is pretty old by now like classic Bay Area thrash a la Death Angel, and he has widened my listening by suggesting I listen to more bands. We also like classic, guitar-driven rock like Hendrix, The Beatles and a lot of ’80s-era rock and pop music.

What about guitar solos? Do you arrange them (like what other metal guitarists do), or are they purely improvised?

They’re more on-the-fly. I find that I have a hard time writing guitar solos… usually I’ll do a few takes, save the best one and try my best to stick to it live. I’ve given up trying to be a shredder because so many guys are way better at it than I am. I’ve come to peace with the fact that I won’t get any faster or more technical when it comes to what I’m capable of now. So the best way to gauge solos is what sounds cool to our ears. I do most of the solos, but I really don’t mind if Russ wants to do one occasionally. I do run out of ideas and tricks every now and then.

Lastly, what is your philosophy as a guitar player and as a musician?

When it comes to sound, definitely “Less is more.” Like I said, no effects or fancy sound-altering devices. Maybe the occasional wah for the solo, and a noise suppressor, but nothing sounds greater than a guitar plugged directly into the amp, and everything’s turned up. I guess the philosophy behind my playing is sort of the same: I may have a few tricks here and there, but nothing is more important than staying in tune, keeping it tight with the rest of the band and not being too flashy to the point that it’s retarded. People may think that to be an endorser, you have to be some guitar hero who plays a million notes per second, or that you have to be some elitist-know-it-all guitar geek on Philmusic.com, but that’s pretty far from the truth: you just have to love the instrument and love playing. At least, for ESP, that will always be enough.”