Since releasing their debut self-titled EP in 2008, before following up with their angst-drenched debut full-length ...To The Beat of a Dead Horse in 2009, post-hardcore vets Touché Amoré have been on a consistent upward trajectory, reeling in scores of new fans who resonate with the band's unique brand of musical storytelling.
The group is currently gearing up to release their fifth studio album, Lament, and has thus far dropped three singles: Limelight, Reminders and I'll Be Your Host, all of which feature some intelligent creative guitar lines.
Guitarists Nick Steinhardt and Clayton Stevens join us today for an exclusive demonstration of the latter track, in which they put its punk-influenced chordal riffs and sizzling leads on display.
On the album recording, Steinhardt plays a 2016 Fender American Elite Thinline Telecaster through a Mesa/Boogie LoneStar 2x12 combo amp, and a pedalboard loaded with a Vintage ProCo RAT [distortion pedal], '80s Boss DM-2 [delay] and '70s Electro-Harmonix Memory Man Deluxe [delay]. Stevens plays a Fender Stratocaster.
“I’ll Be Your Host is played in an alternate tuning I developed in 2013 for a song on our 2013 album Is Survived By,” Steinhardt recalls.
"While writing the song Anyone/Anything, it was originally in a higher key. It bothered me that I had to keep returning to a barred chord at the 1 position as it made the song more difficult to play and can also sound a little finicky when you squeeze your hand too tight or miss-fret when going too fast, as we often do.
“Touché Amoré normally tunes to Eb standard, and I figured out if you detune the G string a half-step further to F, it allows access to a lot of nice sounding open chords by fretting almost any set of strings on the second fret.
“This unique tuning always presents an issue in our setlists, so I set on a mission to write some more for this album, with the challenge of giving them a different feel or key - enter Reminders and I’ll Be Your Host, the darker of the three.”
