“I love my Strat; I’m a Strat guy through and through, but I just needed a guitar with humbuckers”: Cory Wong on the making of his signature StingRay and how Vulfpeck just, y’know, made an album during a show
The funkmeister guitarist is back with a whirlwind of new recording projects in his wake, and a fresh new signature guitar by his side
Cory Wong must surely qualify as being one of the busiest guitarists we’ve ever met. At the time of this interview he was on tour with The Metropole Orkest, but he’s also to be found taking on funk guitar duties with both The Fearless Flyers and Vulfpeck, not to mention sundry side projects like Cory & The Wongnotes. And apart from that he’s a Grammy nominated producer – that’s an awful lot of day jobs all rolled into one, you have to admit.
When you consider that Vulfpeck were one of the first ever bands without a manager and not signed to a major label to have sold out Madison Square Garden – a feat that they may well pull off again this coming September – it’s easy to see that funk is once again very big news.
With grooves so intense even sunlight can’t shine through, all of Wong’s projects benefit from his tight-as-you-like guitar work, and just recently he’s added another signature guitar to his performance regimen.
There’s already a Fender Strat that bears his name, and now he can be seen toting a new Ernie Ball Music Man guitar, too. More of that later, but first we had to find out how he’s managing to juggle all the projects he’s involved with.
How’s the tour going?
“I’ve been on a tour all around Europe and the UK, and I’m feeling very good right now. 11-piece band out on the road – absolutely smashing. We did a couple of US tours, we’ve been to Asia, so when you play that much with a band, your instincts are right in alignment.
“The set goes wildly from highly arranged material to completely open. That line getting blurred is really fun because a lot of times we’ll go into exploration mode, but somehow we’ll just all be locked into the same thing, or we’ll be listening so intently to each other that it feels like it was arranged ahead of time.
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“It’s like, ‘Yo, what did we do last night on that thing?’ It’s like, ‘I don’t remember.’ We’ve got to listen back because I have no idea what we did, but we were so locked in. At this point we’ve been playing so much together that the band is just on fire. So the tour has been going awesome. Shows have been huge.”
What other projects are you working on, currently?
“Putting out a new Vulfpeck album. Right now we’re in the midst of releasing an album called Clarity Of Cal [released in March 2025 on Vulf Records] which was recorded in California in front of an audience. We actually did this with the last Fearless Flyers album [Fearless Flyers IV, Vulf Records] where we just go in and rehearse the tunes for a day or two.
“We had voice memos that we sent to each other and everybody learned the material. Then we played eight shows and we played some songs, and then it’s like, ‘Hey, we’re gonna record our next album – right now.’ We just played the album down, and then we played a bunch more music. So in the middle of our concert, we had this album session.
With any project, when I get in the right headspace, I just need to understand my role. ‘How do I fit into this? What is being asked of me? How can I best use my skill set?’
“It’s not a live album, it’s just an album recorded live in front of an audience. But you’d be surprised at how much isolation you can get nowadays with a lot of the stuff. It’s pretty crazy. So yeah, a new album coming out with Vulfpeck. Really fun, really excited about that.”
Anything else in the pipeline?
“We also just recorded a brand new album with The Fearless Flyers. We were all in California for a concert and for NAMM. You know, it’s one of those bands where we don’t get together that often because we’re all so busy individually. So whenever we can get together, let’s just get the most mileage out of this thing.
“We knew we were all going to be together, so we had prepared for a few months on some material for a new album. We came in, tracked the album in a couple days, and I think I just finished mixing it yesterday.
“That’s part of my secret to being prolific. When I’m on tour, I’m also mixing the album from the other thing, you know? It’s like, sometimes I find myself in a studio on an off day where I can really work on other stuff.
“Doesn’t always work for everybody, but, for me, it’s nice to be able to do that. So that way, when I get home, I can actually have some time. Because if I didn’t finish mixing this album, as soon as I get home, I’ll be like, ‘All right, I gotta get into album audio…’ I need it checked off my to-do list so I can actually relax when I get home.
“So there’s a lot of new music coming out between The Fearless Flyers and Vulfpeck. I’m doing a bunch more touring and just always exploring different parts of my own artistry as Cory Wong, so it’s been a really fun last couple years, and this year looks to be the same sort of thing. We’re just getting out there and playing.”
Do you find that there’s an adjustment you have to make between playing with Vulfpeck, The Fearless Flyers, and The Metropole Orkest?
“With any project, when I get in the right headspace, I just need to understand my role. ‘How do I fit into this? What is being asked of me? How can I best use my skill set?’ [With] Cory Wong, well, yeah, I’m the front person. It’s my vision. I’m the band leader. It’s all my thing. And what’s asked of me is to be out front, and I need to take command of the thing because that’s what’s expected.
“When it comes to Fearless Flyers, I’m a member of the band and my role in that is playing guitar, and, yes, I have leadership responsibilities in it – producing the record and mixing the record and whatever – but that’s just part of the role. It’s not just about me.
“With Vulfpeck, the headspace I’m in is also like, we’re a band. I’m part of this band, and we, at certain times, need to step up and take command of the stage, but the majority of the time, I’m playing what feels appropriate for the song.
“So it’s all about headspace. And, actually, I think what it does is it deepens my artistry because it helps my awareness; I’m constantly trying to be aware of what any moment or any song needs. How can I do something that feels like it really contributes to this song and adds value to it but stays within the role that it needs to, to make sure that whatever is supposed to be paid attention to is being paid attention to?”
Your new Ernie Ball Music Man StingRay II signature guitar launched earlier this year. Tell us about it.
I want something to give me the George Benson, Larry Carlton thing. I want something to give me the screaming lead and driving punk thing in a bridge pickup
“I’ve been looking for a humbucker guitar for a lot of years. I finally had to accept the reality that single-coils weren’t going to give me everything that the world has to offer – because, well, they’re just different. It’s a different tool, right? I love my Strat; I’m a Strat guy through and through, but I just needed a guitar with humbuckers.
“If I go out on tour, I just want two guitars: I want a guitar that can do everything that the Strat doesn’t do. So I want something to give me the George Benson, Larry Carlton thing. I want something to give me the screaming lead and driving punk thing in a bridge pickup. And in the middle, I want something that’s just got the Earth, Wind & Fire, Prince, funky thing that’s different from the Strat.
“I figured it was maybe impossible to get out of one guitar, but I tried a bunch of different pickups and a bunch of other guitars, and I got pretty close with some of them. Then one day, I was just scrolling the internet and I saw [Vulfpeck/Fearless Flyers bassist] Joe Dart texting me, he’s like, ‘Yo, so the Joe Dart Jr bass is coming out, check it out!’ And he sent me a picture.
“This thing looks amazing. It’s basically just like a miniature StingRay, and it had one pickup and whatever. I emailed Brian Ball [CEO of Ernie Ball Inc]. I was like, ‘Hey, can you just slap six strings on there and a humbucker and send me one?’
“He’s like, ‘No, I can’t. That’s not how it works…’ So it’s like, ‘Okay, well, have you guys ever made a StingRay guitar? Because that shape is really cool. You guys should make one. You should do it. It’d be so awesome.’
“Then they made a render, and said, ‘What do you think of this?’ I’m like, ‘It’s awesome!’ They’re like, ‘Okay, hold on. I feel like we’re kind of collaborating on this. How involved do you want to be in this?’ I said, ‘However involved you want me to be. Because what you’re doing right now is making the guitar that I want to be a companion to my Strat.’ So they said, ‘All right, let’s do this as a collaborative guitar.’”
I called Fender and I was like, ‘Hey, I’m looking for a humbucker guitar, and blah, blah. I’m exploring this space with Music Man, I mean, it’s a completely different guitar
Was Fender okay with you working with Music Man on the new guitar?
“I called Fender and I was like, ‘Hey, I’m looking for a humbucker guitar, and blah, blah. I’m exploring this space with Music Man, I mean, it’s a completely different guitar, you know? It’s a totally different tool.’ So it’s like, ‘All right…’ There were a lot of things that [Ernie Ball Music Man] were very set on, and there was a lot of stuff that I really wanted.
“I wanted a bigger headstock; they did some math and figured out how to respace this and whatever because it also makes it look a little more like the StingRay bass shape with the bigger headstock. We tweaked a couple little things just for ratios and whatnot. I wanted the same scale length as a Strat, and I wanted it to feel comfortable and familiar to me.”
“But the pickups – I was like, ‘Yeah, I want to be able to do George Benson and Larry Carlton in the neck pickup. I want to be able to do Satriani and Tom DeLonge in the bridge pickup. And I want to be able to do Prince and Al McKay in the middle.’ The fun thing about the engineers and designers at Music Man is that they’re just up for any challenge, and they’ve proven themselves.
“Take a look at any of the signature guitars they’ve put out with any of their other artists: they really try to get into what the artist’s vision is and let the artist lead and really express themselves. So they didn’t tell me, ‘You’re nuts. That’s not going to happen.’
“I was telling myself, ‘It’s nuts, it’s not going to happen,’ because I’ve been trying to do it for the last three years, finding a guitar with a bunch of different pickups and whatnot. And within the third set of pickups they sent over, somehow they just nailed it.”
You’re obviously really happy with the guitar!
“I’m so stoked about this guitar. What it’s done is it’s really made it so that when I go on tour, I can bring my Strat and I can bring [the Music Man] for everything else, you know? It’s kind of interesting; everybody knows me as a Strat player, like that is my voice.
“But any professional guitar player who says, ‘Oh yeah, I just play one guitar,’ they’re lying. We all know that. [This guitar is] the perfect companion to the Strat, in every way. It’s very different.
“So I’ve been loving having a guitar like this, being able to work with Music Man. The attention to detail that they have is absolutely insane. They make incredible instruments.”
- Clarity of Cal is out now via Vulf Records.
- This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.
With over 30 years’ experience writing for guitar magazines, including at one time occupying the role of editor for Guitarist and Guitar Techniques, David is also the best-selling author of a number of guitar books for Sanctuary Publishing, Music Sales, Mel Bay and Hal Leonard. As a player he has performed with blues sax legend Dick Heckstall-Smith, played rock ’n’ roll in Marty Wilde’s band, duetted with Martin Taylor and taken part in charity gigs backing Gary Moore, Bernie Marsden and Robbie McIntosh, among others. An avid composer of acoustic guitar instrumentals, he has released two acclaimed albums, Nocturnal and Arboretum.
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