Geographically, it’s a long way from the sticky-floored rehearsal spaces of Motor City to the Roman-era cobblestone streets of Bath in southwest England. But it doesn’t take a musicologist to join the dots between Greta Van Fleet’s levee-breaking classic rock and the punchy folk-blues of Ida Mae.
The heavy-roots duo – Chris Turpin (guitar) and Stephanie Jean Ward (vocals), who met as students at Bath Spa University and married in 2016 – was born from the rubble of an earlier outfit, Kill It Kid.
But since rebranding under the moniker of a vintage Lightnin’ Hopkins tune, Ida Mae have made major ripples, with three albums since 2019 released to ever-noisier acclaim – and three million streams to date for the wiry tremolo stomp of their tune, Click Click Domino.
Moving to Nashville in 2019, the pair have already shown a taste for collaboration on tracks like Deep River, which – like Click Click Domino – features South Carolina gunslinger Marcus King on guitar.
Now, having bonded with Jake Kiszka during support slots with Greta, Turpin tells us why he was ready to commit to Mirador and trade in his familiar Gretsches and resonators for a meatier rig.
!["The thing just happened in a spontaneous moment, and Mirador became what it was," Jake Kiszka says; [from left] Nick Pini, Chris Turpin, Kiszka and Mikey Sorbello.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/J7cpfqUGJPutoKqtByCxCB-1200-80.jpg.webp)
Jake tells us he thought your fretwork was “really cool” when he first saw Ida Mae live in 2018. What was your first impression of him as a player?
“The first show we played with Greta was at the Fox Theatre in Detroit. Somehow our name was thrown into the ring to open for them. I’d heard them on the radio, but that first night, I got to be side-of-stage at this hometown show, watching Jake with his ‘number one’ SG [1961 Les Paul] and Marshall stack. And it was a crazy, spiritual experience.
“I’d grown up with rock ’n’ roll. But I’d never really seen it with that level of intensity or raw, effervescent energy. I hadn’t heard a guitar player like that before. His touch is reminiscent of so many of my heroes, but it’s entirely its own thing.”
How does the two-guitar dynamic work in Mirador?
“It’s fascinating that both of us were the sole guitar player in our bands, so it took us a second to work out the right lanes. But it’s hugely freeing when you learn how to take a step back and let the other person lean forward. It was pretty simple to orchestrate the parts. There was just a natural symbiosis between us, like feathers folding around each other.
“I think, because I’m a fingerpicker, that’s been interesting, because there’s always something different I can pull out of a chord. And Jake, I’ve shared a lot of tunings with him over the years – and he’s developed his own – so that’s one way that as a guitar band we’ve tried to differentiate. It was more the sonics that we had to think about.”
What electric guitar did you feel would suit this project best?
I never expected to be playing a Strat, but as soon as I tried it alongside Jake’s SG, it was clear they really liked playing together
“Jake’s SG is such a specific sound, so finding something that would work with that was no mean feat. It took a lot of trading, trying different things, getting it wrong. I ended up with a 1970 Les Paul Custom; we call it the underdog because it just screams, and it’s so big and fat. That worked perfectly with the SG; it just sat right underneath it.
“The riff for Feels Like Gold it’s just those two guitars, straight down the middle, playing the same thing at the same time – and it just sounds huge. I never imagined myself wielding a Les Paul again, but with the Bigsby on that model, it had an acoustic quality that the Gretsches I’ve used in the past also had.
“And then, the other guitar was this ’66 refin Strat with new electronics. Again, I never expected to be playing a Strat, but as soon as I tried it alongside Jake’s SG, it was clear they really liked playing together. Sonically, it scoops around Jake’s tone perfectly. It shimmers, bloats out at the low end, and it has this percussive quality that really works.”
How have you adapted your backline for Mirador?
While everybody else is going to modeling and being sensible, I’m doing the complete opposite!
“It’s hugely different. Jake has traditionally played Marshall-style amps, but on this record he was using a Fender Princeton. So I decided to lean into the British thing and ended up using a Lead and Bass 20 Marshall head that Dave Cobb had, which had been modified by Dumble. But then, for the live stuff, Jake plays really loud.
“So for the first time in my life, I’ve been playing a cranked Marshall JTM45 through a half-stack, à la Jimi Hendrix. And I’ve now decided it is just the king of amplifiers. I’m still getting my drive from pedals and using the amp more as a platform, but my God, that JTM45 has changed my life. While everybody else is going to modeling and being sensible, I’m doing the complete opposite!”
Which pedals are your go-tos for Mirador?
“Jake’s rig is very simple. He just hits the amp really hard. Whereas I’m using more gain stages. On the record, I used a Dinosaural Cogmeister, one of these British pedals made by Dan Coggins, who’s a bit of a genius. And I’m loving this Jam Pedals Double Dreamer [dual overdrive], which I’m taking out on its first tour.
“It’s a Tube Screamer-based pedal – and I don’t really like Tube Screamers, so I have no idea why this pedal is working so well. Other than that, it’s [Jim Dunlop] Fuzz Faces and wah – really traditional ingredients.”
Do you think of Mirador as a tug-of-war between Greta and Ida Mae – or is this band something entirely new?
We wrote three of the songs in one day. And again, that came down to the natural symbiosis and kinship and brotherhood
“Something entirely new. There’s no way either of us would have done this if it felt like a paler shade of something else we were already doing. We wrote the record in the best part of a week, at Jake’s old house in East Nashville, with him playing his Gibson L-00 and me with this tiny 1920s parlor.
“We wrote three of the songs in one day. And again, that came down to the natural symbiosis and kinship and brotherhood. It all just fell out so quickly, we didn’t have a chance to think too much about the initial stages, but then we were very precious about how we curated it from that point onwards.
“I’ve not heard a band quite like this. And I’m not quite sure what it is. It leans into moments of folk and rock ’n’ roll, it’s got a lot of American folk ballads. I don’t know: it’s a really interesting cocktail. And there’s no way we could have planned it..”
Do you have a favorite example of your guitar partnership?
“When Feels Like Gold came together, that was a bit of a moment. It’s a big, heavy riff, but it’s very simple, and it just felt like we’d cracked the code. It was something that felt like it already existed but hadn’t quite been done that way before. I’d probably put that on the jukebox.
“For me, Must I Go Bound was another huge moment. I think a song like that would scare a lot of rock ’n’ roll bands. We were reconnecting with early British folk, trying to write a song that felt like it had pre-existed for maybe a hundred years before we wrote it.
“That’s what we are aiming at. I get excited by moments like that, outside of the rock and heavy guitar playing – just two gentle acoustics picking on a song like that. And Jake’s solo on that is killer.”
- Mirador is available to preorder now and will be released via Universal on September 19
- This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.
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