Arkansas troubadour Jesse Welles may have carved a niche as a modern-day voice of resistance, with his slew of viral videos and original songs tackling grenade topics such as ICE raids and opiates. However, the singer-songwriter, who always seems to have an acoustic guitar at hand, is now taking head-on what may or may not be a less controversial topic: buying guitars.
In a video filmed at the legendary Chicago Music Exchange, Welles delivers his ode to the instrument, with lyrics such as, “Ever since I was a boy, my mom and my pop couldn't keep me away from the old pawn shop by trading this and selling that, got me a Peavey amp and a Chinese Strat,” and “God made the critters in the oceans and trees, and then he got done making Adam and Eve, and Adam said, ‘Hey, God, just do one more thing.’ God said, ‘What?’ And Adam said, ‘I need a guitar, please.’”
Another name-drop comes in the form of Billy Strings – “If I can pick a guitar like old Billy Strings. Well, I can't today, but I'm practicing” – which led the bluegrass virtuoso to comment, “Fucking YESS dude!!! This is the jam.”
Indeed, the feel-good track is a world away from the themes Welles usually digs into. However, as the fast-rising singer-songwriter and guitarist explains in an interview with Westword, “As far as people digging it for the guitar or whatever, it’s like if someone was using the Tao Te Ching as a doorstop, and in that respect, they’re getting a practical use out of it.”
“So where’s the harm in that? It’s there. If someone were to come to the house and remove the doorstop to read it someday, then it would have served two purposes. There are songs that I’ve listened to my entire life that I probably didn’t really understand until last year, you know? You come back to it and have a whole new understanding of it. If you’re listening at all, that’s just a wonderful thing.”
In a 2018 Guitar World interview, well before his viral era, Welles waxed lyrical about his relationship with the guitar – and what he hopes to get out of it every time he picks one up.
“People pretty up the guitar too much,” he said matter-of-factly. “I kind of fight when I play, and I want people to hear that struggle of my fingers getting gnawed up on the fretboard. I like to use amp overdrive to get a warm guitar buzz, and sometimes I’ll go straight into the board and crank it.
As he aptly put it, “When the guitar sounds big and fuzzy, I know it’s right.”
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