DZ: Welcome to Sound Plus Doctrine, the podcast of Sovereign Grace Music, where we explore what the Bible has to say about music and worship in the church, and encourage those who plan, lead, and participate in their Sunday gatherings each week.
DZ: Hello and welcome to the Sound Plus Doctrine podcast. My name is David Zimmer.
BK: My name is Bob Kauflin.
DZ: And we are on a second episode.
BK: Woo woo.
DZ: With the incomparable Josh Scott of JHS Pedals.
BK: I don’t know if he’s incomparable.
DZ: I don’t know anybody else.
BK: I compare him to people, nothing. No one comes to mind, but I’m sure there’s someone we could compare him to.
DZ: Yeah. Yeah.
BK: Anyway, Josh, it’s great to have you back.
JS: Good to be here. Love it.
BK: Love. The first…
JS: Had a lot of fun last time.
BK: Love the first conversation. Got into some great conversations about the value of music versus the value of Jesus. And our own value, and how we look at all that stuff. So, if you haven’t seen or heard that one, you should listen to that one.
DZ: Definitely.
BK: But today we’re gonna talk more about the place of the electric guitar in the Congregational Gallery, Sunday Church. You know of course there was a time, I’m a little older than you guys, and there was a time when the electric guitars were not exactly appreciated.
DZ: Satanic as…
BK: In the Sunday gathering.
DZ: Just like the drum kit.
BK: Just like the drum kit.
JS: The devil’s music.
[laughter]
BK: And so, you’re welcome for paving the way for that.
DZ: But thank you, honestly.
BK: You’re welcome.
DZ: Yeah. That’s pretty good.
JS: Yeah.
BK: But no, in many churches there are electric guitar players, and sadly, I would say a lot of times, those electric guitar players don’t exactly know what they’re doing. And why they’re doing what they’re doing.
DZ: Or they think they…
JS: Fair.
DZ: Know that they’re… They think that they’re adding a lot to the gathering, but…
BK: And we’ve seen those YouTube videos where that happens and it’s sad. Or they just stand there, they just don’t quite know. Or they play it like an acoustic guitar. So, anyway, we like to start with just your journey. I think in the last podcast you said you were playing… Were you playing in the church in high school?
JS: No, I was… No.
BK: Just playing electric.
JS: My encounter with the Lord, I pretty much immediately was getting involved in worship music. Yeah. So.
BK: Okay. Okay. So, you start playing for the church. Yeah?
JS: Yeah. And this is like I would call this like peak worship together era, you know? This is like heart of worship pitches. No. No, it’d be like here I am to worship like Tim Hughes.
BK: Okay. Here I am to worship Tim Hughes. Yep. Yep. And so…
DZ: Well, are you playing acoustic or electric?
JS: Well, both. But electric mainly.
DZ: Oh, okay. Cool. Great.
JS: Yeah. So, yeah, you know that that whole era of it was like British worship leaders [0:03:09.4] ____.
[laughter]
BK: Yes. Listen, I remember the first Delirious album. I heard cassette in the mid ’90s and thought, what is this? This is crazy.
JS: I know. Delirious a lot with this discussion. Yeah. For understanding. At first I thought, ah, guitar, I don’t know. This doesn’t fit. And then I heard Delirious and it helped me.
BK: And would you say they were riffing off of you too? Is that the…
JS: Yeah. Yeah. And getting… I know Stu really well now. I love talking to him because they didn’t…
BK: Steve is?
JS: Stu.
DZ: No, Stu.
BK: Oh, Stu. Yeah.
JS: Stu’s the guitarist. He’s one of the primary songwriters, him and Martin. And they were just making music. But yeah, when you look at it in hindsight, they grew up listening to Queen U2 and they were just making music. I love, the American thing is that there’s a little more of the term, like that is secular in America. And then in England it was like we’re just believers in like Little… And that’s interesting with music.
DZ: Yeah. We’re all stealing from each other.
BK: Well, yeah.
DZ: We always have.
BK: And so you had no problem playing electric in your church at that time?
JS: I don’t… Other people may have, but I didn’t.
[laughter]
BK: It’s good that the electric player not have problems. But you have Psalm 33, which says, “Give thanks to the Lord with a lyre. Make melody to him with a harp of 10 strings.” Now there are only six on the guitar, but it’s close.
JS: Need more.
BK: “Sing to him a new song. Play skillfully on the strings with loud shouts.” So we would love to…
DZ: Shouts could be distortion [laughter]
BK: Yeah. We won’t get into that. We won’t get into that. So, you played both acoustic and electric. Would you say you played one more than the other?
JS: No, I just… To me, guitar is a guitar. I think to most you get into the world of like just guitar players. You have a lot of people when they’re starting, they’ll say phrases like… And this is not negative, it’s just when you’re learning, you go, I wanna be a lead guitar player, or I wanna be a rhythm player.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: Yes. Yes.
JS: Just, you need to be a guitar player. You need to… A lead guitar player is useless. If that’s all you know how to do, we can get into that later. [laughter]
BK: No offense to those of you who consider yourself lead guitarists.
JS: Who shows up at a gig. Like you’re an amazing piano player, who shows up at a gig and they’re like, “I’m a lead pianist.” Anyway.
[laughter]
DZ: Bob definitely does it.
BK: Well, I have done that occasionally. Okay. So, this would be great. So your own journey, as you were playing in the church…
DZ: And your church was okay with you playing electric.
JS: Yeah. Yeah.
BK: And You didn’t think of yourself as that lead player, that rhythm player you just said. As you said, you’re curious, you’re obsessive, you’re just gonna learn to play the guitar well.
JS: Yeah. I’d have to think about it a little more. I don’t know what I thought. I remember not… I remember. ’cause I’m coming from a world of, I have been in rock bands. I have this encounter with the Lord. I’m over here like a grunge kid, guitar player who’s getting into Brit Rock and like Guitar U2 and Radiohead, and I’m like the guitar is this very versatile instrument. I mean, all this stuff you can explore. And I remember getting into the church environment and the worship together thing was kinda happening, but most people were on keys. And it was a little gospel-y, a little gospel flare and some of it. And I was unfamiliar with most of that. And I remember the initial feelings of like woo, I don’t know how to play with this a little bit.
JS: This is uncharted for me. Right. And I remember like trying to play along with I believe it was a hymn. It might’ve just been Come, Thou Fount or something. And I remember having this moment. ‘Cause it’s almost like you have to deprogram and think about the guitar as a, we’ll get into this as what is an instrument? What am I trying to serve here in the song? And I was like I’ve never played anything with so many chords. That was like a thought I had. I remember this… And that was a little scary. I was like there’s so many chords. Like I don’t even have time to establish anything here. So, when I say all that, I just, I just was open to evolving and unlearning and how could I make the guitar work here that was always at the front of my mind.
BK: That is so good. Yeah. ‘Cause I want you to talk about your evolution as guitarist. That was part of it. Just realizing the skills you had up to that point were not sufficient to really serve the church effectively.
JS: Not at that time, no. I mean, no.
BK: So can you talk about, and I’m thinking here, people listening here either you are a guitar player, you have like a guitar player in your band maybe your child is a guitar player. I don’t know. What are some of the things that you came to see were most important on two levels, both on the heart level and then the skill level. You can do those in order, you can do them together. But just how did you evolve? Obviously, I love that picture of, that was one of the questions I had. Any thoughts for electric guitar players playing hymns? You had this moment where you realized, “Oh my gosh, I am unequipped to do this.” [laughter] So that’s…
JS: Yeah.
DZ: Where do I fit? Where do I fit in these hymns?
BK: Yeah. You could get angry, say, let’s not do these songs. Or you could say, I’m not gonna play for the church or… But obviously, you adapted your humble guy. So just what are some of the things you saw about your heart, about your skills that you’d wanna pass on to others?
JS: Yeah. I think some of these traits came from learning as a musician being really obsessive as I discussed in the other podcast. And then having done some studio work and had been around some understanding guitar as a tool. I had an understanding of this. I grew up in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, like very famous studio talent.
BK: Wow.
JS: I’d cut demos with band. Like I had been in some rooms where I understood what it felt like to not know what I was doing. But, I also understood, and I had read a lot about my favorite musicians and stuff. I embraced, even at that young age, I had learned to embrace that just because I don’t know a genre that’s actually an invitation to learn a thing so that I can pull it into me.
DZ: Yes, yes, yes, yes.
BK: Oh that’s great.
JS: So Miles Davis, that quote I love is,”The greatest musicians or thieves who never get caught.” So how do you get to that point? You…
[laughter]
DZ: Yeah, that’s good.
JS: You have to explore. I mean, I have set and learned chicken picking country. I’ve gotten into jazz. I’ve listened to Coltrane records and thought about and how does… And you become you by synthesizing everything you love.
BK: Yes.
JS: So when I faced the hymn, I didn’t go, what is this garbage? You know? It’s like actually to be honest in my heart, it was beautiful. I was on… I knew… I had heard hymns I wasn’t like in a bubble. I’d heard Old Rugged Cross, and I was from Alabama. Hymns are like playing at Walmart. So, I just was like at a spot where I was like this is really beautiful. I don’t know how to do this, but hey, there’s some, wow. Look at these stacked chords. Look at this like, hmm. This is not four four here. This is not where the streets have no names. [laughter]
DZ: Right, Right.
JS: But it was an opportunity to find something else to… Another path that led to what would ultimately become who I am as a guitar player now at two decades later, three decades later.
DZ: Yeah. Josh, that’s a huge… Especially for young guitarists or any musician, drummer, bass player, pianist. It’s like the Miles Davis quote you said reminds me of Austin Kleon’s book, ‘Steal Like An Artist.’ It’s like…
JS: Great book.
BK: Guys. Guys. We’re not talking about stealing the whole time on the podcast, good night.
[laughter]
DZ: But like a true artist gives credit where he found it and then changes it like makes it his own. And that’s like what you’re saying. I think so often we wanna serve our congregations the best we can on our instrument, but we’re limited. We’re limited either in technique or taste. And so, I feel like you can get a lot of good technique and lessons or books or YouTube videos, but taste comes from what you’re talking about, taking from all these different sources. So, it’s like if this song on Sunday needs more of a classical feel on a picking acoustic, I can draw from that because I’ve played in that territory. You know? So I just think it’s so important for young musicians and old musicians to hear that, don’t just do the one thing you do over and over again.
JS: Yeah. Again, I think this is every creative discipline. If you wanna have good taste, if you wanna be versed, like take it food. If I just… If I wanna have good taste in food and I only eat chicken McNuggets, it’s never gonna happen. And if I wanna be a professional, anything like a plumber or a lawyer, if I’m a professional plumber that says, I only install P-traps under kitchen sinks. I’m never gonna get work. Right. It’s like there’s such a logical thing that musicians don’t grab early. They think that John Mayer woke up and like from the womb was playing this, they don’t see that he has adapted these 10 other artists and synthesize them. And he may not even enjoy two of them anymore. But he became a professional in what it took to find those flavors and taste. So yeah, you just gotta accept the challenge of I don’t know how to play this. That’s fun. At least your instrument’s still fun.
DZ: Right. And I know, someone said that mayor couldn’t do it on his own, so he stole the band of the records he loved and put them on his records. Like all the D’Angelo musicians. It’s so funny. But to your point, it’s like yeah. Be be well versed if you wanna serve in your context or in any field you are in.
JS: If you wanna be a professional guitar player, you need to play stuff you don’t like.
BK: Okay. So let’s bring it down to the church. So as, as you think of playing for the church, what should, and let’s focus primarily on electric guitar players. ‘Cause there’s a lot of acoustic guitar players out there. What should an electric guitar player be thinking in terms of what could I do? What do I have to offer? What do I have to bring? I mean, obviously none of our instruments are needed. God doesn’t need our instruments. He can use them.
JS: Sure.
BK: But, so with that understanding, what can electric guitars bring to a congregational setting? How should they be thinking about their role?
DZ: Yeah. And would you also add to that, like the heart of what…
BK: Well, sure.
DZ: Yes.
BK: Yeah.
DZ: The technical side, but also the heart posi posture. What is the heart posture of an electric guitarist?
BK: Get in as many leads as you can. [laughter]
JS: Just shred constantly.
[laughter]
JS: I have a… Remind me, I’ll tell you a story about one time when I was leading. Yeah…
DZ: Tell it now. Tell it now.
[laughter]
BK: We’ll get back to the question.
JS: Yeah. Okay. It actually does work. It does work here. So, I pretty much became a worship leader really early in my walk with the Lord and loved it. And I led from electric or acoustic pretty equally. And I always treated my worship teams like a band. I tended to have several bands I would build. And so, the church that my wife and I planted, they got rather large. So I had about three bands and I would treat them differently and I would mentor other people to lead some of them. And so, I had this kind of culture of, I treat it like a band. ‘Cause I was familiar with bands. And I was well I’m not a choir director. I knew that early on. So I didn’t try.
[laughter]
JS: And I was always trying to just pull in normal players. ‘Cause I’m a normal player. And there’s people out there. There’s this one guy though. He the nameless guy. I’ll never say his name ever, but he just I could never reign him in. I mean, I’d be up there this is 2024. So, I’m like I don’t know, let’s just say I’m up there real sensitive moment and playing Catherine Scott, Hungry or something. And it’s like subtle and you’re just creating this atmosphere for introspective. Like just you’re creating that moment. And this dude just on his strat with a marshal behind him, like just spreading like really bad blues licks. [laughter]
JS: Like we’re talking…
DZ: Here we go.
JS: You know, we’re… You know. ‘Cause this is how every song sounded then. You know what I’m saying?
DZ: Yeah. Soft.
JS: Yeah. He’s just like.
[vocalization]
JS: Literally you’d be like you’d hear like.
[laughter]
DZ: Jimmy Page in the back.
JS: So, the lesson there is, I think guitar players should think, I mean, the textbook answer that is correct. It’s 90% of the time you’ll probably get the answer because you should give your best to the Lord. You need to think about what you’re doing and be good at it. Have a heart, a humility. That’s all very true. At the end of the day, guitar is an instrument, an instrument’s a tool and it’s there to perform a function or task. So, I like to think really practically, I know this is spiritual stuff, but like the natural and the spiritual are god’s in all of this. It’s all one big ball of yarn. So, what’s the task of the guitar? It’s there to serve Whatever is happening, it’s at the end of the day, like that guy was oblivious to what was actually happening.
DZ: Right. Right.
JS: Sometimes it’s as simple as just what is happening and what am… Maybe I shouldn’t play. That’s the best service. Or maybe it’s like wow, there’s this scene here where the guitar’s voice works to say something. And I think what most guitarists don’t want to hear and what the greatest guitarist in the world of all of history have learned, this applies to the church, it applies everywhere. The best guitarists know when to not play. This is every instrument.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: Yes. Yes.
JS: It’s just giving space, being aware. I feel like just the guitar is a tool, just like any other tool. If you misuse it, you’re misusing it. You don’t take a hammer and change a tire, you know?
BK: Yeah.
DZ: Mm-hmm.
JS: So, that’s the practical side of like, how it could be really helpful for so many, especially younger guitarists. You’re not the main character, no one is.
DZ: Yep, yep. Yep.
JS: Yeah.
BK: I was at a wedding recently and playing with the cellist and they had been a part of Sovereign Grace churches for a while and knew who I was. And I was… I forget. It was just piano, a guitar acoustic and a cello. No amplification. And so, I was playing a recessional and just kind of playing fully. And, I don’t receive many encouragement like this. But the guy came up to me and said afterwards, “Man, I never realized over these years like how much you were holding back.” No one ever says that to me.
[laughter]
BK: They’re always saying to me, can you hold back?
DZ: Can you rein it in a little bit. [laughter]
BK: Some, but it is that I was reminded that praise the Lord, there’s some evidence that I have grown. And that being your best, giving your best, being the most excellent you can be, does not mean using all the skills you have.
DZ: Yeah. Restraint.
JS: Yeah. It’s being prepared to serve the moment and that’s a full sentence. Like being prepared means back to that first topic, you need to learn some stuff you never thought about learning ’cause you might feel that moment where like, “Oh, that’s where that goes.”
BK: Yes.
JS: And if you don’t have it in your tool belt, you can’t use it. So being prepared, serving in a worship environment. Yeah, it’s like a ballet of sorts. Like no one’s the main character. You’re just trying to serve what is happening. You’re just part of a tool belt. And that’s beautiful.
BK: Josh, have there have been any ways of practicing and maybe not, that have helped you, that you found, oh, okay, this is the best way to develop this skill, or, this has been really helpful to develop this skill? And I also want to hear about any particular skills that you found helpful when serving a congregation?
JS: I’m a really horrible, like person to talk about prac… I don’t ever.
BK: Okay. You don’t practice.
JS: I used to try to give guitar lessons and so I think I just like harmed people forever. I mean my general approach, I think it’s that part of the, that brain that I talked about. I just really get into stuff. I basically, my whole guitar path has been listening to records.
BK: Yes.
JS: And learning records.
BK: Immersed yourself.
JS: And taking, hundreds if not thousands of things from records or people getting with players in person that I’m like, if I see a guy in town or if I was around people as a teenager, just like, “Hey, show me that.” And then just letting that synthesize itself.
BK: Yes.
DZ: Yeah.
JS: I don’t really have any better advice.
BK: That’s good.
JS: Because I think people… I think the education of guitar can go so many ways.
BK: Yep.
JS: I’m not great in the classroom. I’d like my head start itching and I just can’t do it. I just…
[laughter]
BK: No. Thats fine.
JS: I had to kind of fight through stuff on my own.
BK: Yeah.
JS: But other people really love structured like today on part three. I think that I just can’t connect that way. So, learning records though, I mean, I think that’s the aids old way or, and getting and being real life with other musicians, like playing with other people and don’t ever discount that. Like every opportunity…
BK: Very good.
JS: Have, just get with some people and play music. ’cause stuff happens. There’s a very natural process of, oh, I, something’s happening here. Rhythms and music and notes, and it all comes together.
BK: It is the way God has designed music where it’s so fascinating. Music in itself is such a fascinating gift that God has given us for his glory. And we get to use it in that way to magnify Jesus in such a way that we also get to enjoy the music that we’re magnifying with. It’s remarkable. So any particular skills that you found helpful, like in a congregational setting? Like does someone need to, and I’m gonna ask you too about three JHS Pedals you think would be most helpful for someone who’s just figuring this stuff out, but, in terms of skills, for instance, I know not all electric guitar players know how to just have a nice, just sustained tone. Like core tone. A bed, provide a bed. I don’t know if that’s a skill or…
DZ: Yes, it is.
JS: Yeah.
DZ: It’s a skill. And then there’s electric guitar players that don’t know how to play lead lines. And so what’s their role? And then there’s guitar players that really only know how to play lead lines because they listen to music that’s lead heavy and don’t know how to provide that sort of rhythm. We talked a little bit about that, like the difference between these players and we’ve talked about how to be a holistic guitar player coming into a church. But how do you, yeah, how do you think about, what tools do you use on a Sunday that serve the congregation?
JS: Yeah. Like, again, one sentence is whatever you’re struggling with, find people that do it well in person or on records and just hound them, hound that record or that person’s, figure it out. So then, yeah, what are the skills? So… Yeah, guitar is an incredibly versatile instrument. And I think that’s one of the interesting things about it in a band scenario or in a worship team scenario, is the guitar can be so many different things that it can actually be irritating. ‘Cause you’ll have… I play piano, okay, I play keys, you can kind of feel what those two things mean. Usually nowadays, if somebody plays keys, I can kind of picture a Nord, I see a laptop, I play piano. If you meet a certain person, you’re like, Oh, they’re a pure… That’s a piano player.
JS: Guitar, I play guitar. You’re like, it’s that wheel on the wheel of fortune when you spin it. And it’s like, where are you gonna land on the 38 different guitar styles? So, the thing with this, I think that’s important is, everybody has something they are drawn to the guitar with and the guitar is so versatile. That’s why the guitar survived, by the way, it’s important to know the context of the guitar really almost didn’t survive the 1800s. It gets into the 1900s. It’s electrified in the 30s, 1932. And that electrification of guitar is what gave it this survival ability. It suddenly became an instrument that can almost do anything. I love these early ads for like the first fuzz pedal, the vibrato arms on a 50 strat. It’s like makes horn noises, simulate a cello like these are great. The guitar starts evolving into this, it evolves into other than a synthesizer, the most versatile instrument ever. And that’s why it’s also so challenging. So, as a worship leader, I think you’ve got to lock in with what people say.
JS: There’s a semantic issue, I play guitar. The first thing that could be helpful to any teams. What do they mean? Let’s talk about it. Let’s have a, like how many times, how great would it be if you just took 15 minutes and listen to what they say guitar is? That’s a big start. And then what are the skills? Then you start incorporating, “Well, hey, cool. You’re what I would call an ambient shoegaze guitarist.” I love that. I fall into that a lot. I’d say, “Well, hey, let’s have you ever played acoustic and like gone DADGAD tuning and…
DZ: Yeah, Yeah.
JS: Swing them away and like the skill set that’s really needed with guitar is versatility. I think it’s understanding it as an instrument. You don’t have to love it all. Like I don’t want to sit around and play like Buck Owens or something like…
DZ: Yes.
[laughter]
JS: But I can sit here and go like, I know like a bluegrass like, like I get it.
BK: Very well done.
JS: I think it’s… What are those skills you need? I think it’s trying to dive into the versatility and understand that the guitar, the guitar is problematic to teams and to guitarists because it means so many different things.
DZ: Yeah.
JS: Oh, I don’t know if that’s a good answer to the question. That’s what comes to mind because, it’s really almost… The better question is what what are we even saying guitar is sometimes in worship because you guys were doing it. You’re like a pad, a space, an ambience, a lead line, a rhythm. Those are different instruments.
JS: A rhythmic plucking thing. I know some good electric players where you go…
[vocalization]
DZ: Delay, yeah. Beautiful.
BK: Yeah.
JS: So, a dotted eighth on everything.
DZ: Yeah. Yeah.
BK: And sometimes it’s great and sometimes it’s not. And so, the whole idea of taste and listening, I think what you brought up a number of times is listening. What sounds good when you listen? And do you know how to do that? Can you reproduce that? If not, well, then you should learn how to do it.
JS: Yeah. One of my favorite final thought here, again, I think it’s some of this fundamental thinking about music is one of my favorite practices, I love recording and I’ve produced some records like this where people before Pro Tools and computers would use tape machines and had limited track. So, a lot of the classic records…
BK: I remember.
JS: From the age of electronic recording all the way through the 70s and 80s, a lot of the really amazing band music you hear, it’s people in a room playing off each other and being aware. The computer destroys the awareness of the recording world.
BK: Absolutely.
JS: Now you have layers and we have a generation of young people now. I’m kind of at the dead end of that in the 90s. Like I experienced using monitors in a band and in a garage. But now you have a lot, and especially in the church, guitarists are from teenagers through adulthood now. We have 30 year olds who have never not played with in-ears in their ears. And there’s a fundamental challenge of you’re not really hearing. You’re hearing everything the same layer. It’s one dimensional. So, this practice of like getting in a room and like man, if you ever recorded, if anyone is bored enough to do this, it’s a wonderful team experience. Take a one microphone, put it in the middle of your band and record a song and tell every musician if you can’t hear them, you’re too loud.
BK: Yes.
JS: And that’s how they recorded in the 60s. So, you end up with this circle and you’re actually having to think about them. That’s what’s fascinating about modern music. So, when you end up on a church platform or any band, especially church though, because I think there’s not enough education on this, how often is the guitar player worried for the keyboard player?
BK: Yes.
DZ: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good.
JS: How often is the drummer worried for the bass player? And that’s something really special. That’s where music is needed.
BK: Yes.
JS: When people are worried for each piece.
BK: Yes. I just did a… At the last Worship God Conference, I did a pre-conference master class on piano. I was trying to revise it and thinking, how can I approach this differently? And the first thing I said to them was, it’s really important what you listen to. First thing you need to listen to is your lyrics. That’s the very first thing you listen… What in the world are we singing? Second thing you need to listen to is your congregation. The third thing you need to listen to is the other instruments. And the last thing you need to listen to is yourself. And for me, that was like a revelation.
DZ: Yes.
BK: It’s like, oh, that’s… But you’re saying that, and I love the idea of playing in a room, you actually need to hear the other people. Those are such great points, Josh. All right.
JS: Yeah. And I’m just thinking the history of recording and good music, that’s fundamental. I think it’s very spiritual. I think God created this art, but I do think that it’s so exemplified in historical recordings that we’ve lost… It’s an art. It’s a bit of a practice that sadly, the technology that’s so wonderful, multi-track recording, kind of just started deleting that from society a little. And I think it’d be very helpful for people to imagine that a little bit more. And it gets you in that spot of like, music is a collaborative moment. It’s not me.
DZ: Even in our day and age of where records are at right now, I still think there will forever be a purity of that band in the room. And there’s records…
JS: That’s why so many people still do it. Yeah.
DZ: I know.
JS: Yeah.
DZ: And that’s what’s so exciting.
BK: Okay. We’re a little over time, but someone’s new to this. They don’t know JHS Pedals. Three JHS… How many JHS Pedals are there?
JS: Probably like, roughly 40 or so or something like that.
BK: 40, okay. Three that you’d say, you should probably get this. And what do they do?
JS: Yeah. Some just very fundamental, practical things. I think in the environment of like, house of worship, praise and worship stuff, a reverb is very useful. So, I would say like, the three series reverb. I have three different versions of what I would call reverb. Reverb is the sound of a space. It’s like, delay is the sound like echo. But reverb is important because you’re simulating, reverbs invented to simulate a room when they didn’t have that room. So, what that does for guitar is it kind of helps soften it, it helps place it in a mix. So, one of the three series reverbs, those are always really nice.
BK: That should count as one. That counts as one pedal.
JS: Yeah. So, the three series reverb is what I would say. Yeah. Next would be, for just good sound. Like, yeah, we can affect the guitar, we can give it all these bells and whistles, we can give delays and all these tricks. But at the end of the day, like, what is tone and good foundational sound? I’d say you need something in your rig that before you start adding delays or distortions or whatever and getting crazy, like, what does your guitar sound like? So, the pure sound of your guitar. I think that’s important. Like, you don’t build a house on sand, right? So, like, with your guitar tone, you need to build it on a good strong point. I have a product called the Clover, which is essentially this, it’s a preamp, it has XLR out as well. So, this works on acoustic, bass guitar, keys, pianos, and electric. And it’s fundamentally just a device you put on your board that gives you a really good, strong, clean, warm, beautiful foundational sound.
BK: That’s great. I’d like that for my voice.
JS: Yeah, we all need that. And then thirdly, just for fun, we talked about Delirious a little bit. I developed a pedal with Stu, who is the guitar player, because Delirious to me was really helpful, in my path of understanding the guitar can fit. That was really cool. There’s a pedal called, The Kilt. And it is essentially kind of overdrive all the way to fuzz. So, this one pedal, it’s smallish, like it’s versatile. You can do any kind of distortion sound you want, overdrive, distortion, or fuzz. And it’s just all, it is a pedal that is all over praise and worship music for the last 10 years. Just because it’s so versatile, and that’s why we made it.
BK: Josh, this has been amazing.
DZ: Yeah.
BK: We have to do this again.
DZ: Yes.
BK: Thank you for your, Well, your work in this whole field, but more importantly, thank you for your desire to make much of Jesus with what you do.
JS: Thank you guys for having me on here. I love this relationship. And man, just even coming that first time we met, just so impactful. I’ve enjoyed just anything I can do with you guys.
BK: Well, the honor is ours, the glory is Jesus’s.
DZ: Yes.
BK: And thank you all for joining us, and we hope we’ll see you again.
DZ: Yeah.
