Sick Riffs #36: The second we heard the fizz and sputter of Crown Lands' Spit It Out, we knew we had one of the riffs of 2020 on our hands. So we were delighted when guitarist Kevin Comeau offered to teach you the song's monster hook - and a whole lot more.
First thing's first: Spit It Out is in open-D tuning [DADF#AD] with a capo on the first fret, and Comeau employs a dual-amp setup to get that colossal tone from his Gibson SG Classic - one rig features a Third Man Bumble Buzz running into a '50s Paul amp, while the clean sounds come from a Boss CE-2 and Roland RE-201 hitting a JC-55.
As Comeau says, "A big part of my tone is to have one fuzzed out amp and one cleaner amp going at all times. It's important to have the attack of a clean tone with the bloom and sustain of a dirty sound when balancing riffs, chords and melody runs."
You'll need to be pretty nifty with a slide to nail some of these chromatic licks, but that's sure to inject a little of that irresistible Crown Lands swagger into your playing.
"This situation has obviously affected us and all of our friends in the music industry fairly hard," Comeau says. "I'm lucky enough to be with my family and I'm counting my blessings in that everyone I know is safe and healthy.
"We had a lot of touring overseas get postponed because of the virus. It changed our entire year. We're thankful that we weren't over there when the borders closed.
"I've been working hard at home writing new material - staying focused on music has helped me a lot with this situation. I haven't had this much time to practice my instrument in years.
"It's hard to take a negative situation and turn it to a positive, but music has been there for me in the darkest times. This is another reminder of how important my art is to me. I'm sure many people feel the same way."
Support Crown Lands
https://crownlands.bandcamp.com/album/rise-over-run
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http://www.crownlandsmusic.com/
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Sick Riffs is a Guitar World video series designed to help guitarists affected by the coronavirus. Self-isolating players around the world have each filmed a lesson where they teach you one of their own guitar riffs, up close and personal. If you dig the lesson, we encourage you to buy music and merch from the artist or stream their music.
