Jerry Cantrell’s new solo album, I Want Blood, is out now and if you pick it up you’ll hear a ton of wah pedal, a ton of talk box, and maybe a Rolling Stones influence, too, and we have the late electric guitar maestro Jeff Beck and legendary film director Martin Scorsese to thank for it.
Speaking to Guitar World, the Alice In Chains guitarist revealed that his influences on the album run the gamut. There are those we might expect, such as Black Sabbath riff-master Tony Iommi, who has always been a lodestar for Cantrell’s writing. But when faced with writer’s block, the lyrics for his follow-up to 2021's Brighten proving hard to come by, Cantrell took himself down to his local cinema in search of inspiration.
“With Off the Rails, I was stuck – didn’t quite know where to finish it – so I went and saw Killers of the Flower Moon,” he says “There’s this scene where all of the workers are burning the fields, and they become distorted figures on the screen. That’s where I got ‘heat distortion’ from. Even though it has nothing to do with the film, specifically, Martin Scorsese broke me out of my writer’s block and I was able to get a second verse started.”
Another Scorsese picture give him a guitar tone to work with. Watching The Departed, the Stones’ Gimme Shelter had Cantrell adding a vintage tremolo pedal to his pedalboard.
“Keith Richards uses an amazing tremolo effect on his guitar,” says Cantrell. “I copped that. We found a 1958 DeArmond tremolo pedal, and I put it on Echoes Of Laughter and maybe another song.”
Cantrell has long been a fan of the talk box, breaking it out on early AIC classics such as Man In The Box. I Want Blood was an occasion to use two different talk boxes, with producer Joe Barresi’s encyclopaedic knowledge of vintage gear turning Cantrell onto a late ‘60s model after showing him a video of Jeff Beck playing it.
“There is a lot of Cry Baby and talk box on this record,” says Cantrell. “We went heavy with those. We used two different kinds of talk boxes on on Vilified and Throw Me a Line. One is the Dunlop that I’ve been using forever, which is just the box on the floor and the tube coming up to the mic.
“But while we were messing around with talk boxes one day, Joe showed me a clip of Jeff Beck with a Kustom ‘The Bag’ on. It’s much smaller – like a bag that hangs over your shoulder, with a much smaller straw and a wood bead for you to hold onto with your teeth.”
That bag came in custom colours, all the psychedelic patterns of the era. It was not just for guitar. Kustom Electronics designed it for guitar, electric piano, harpsichord and organ. Any amplified instrument would work. This is what you are hearing on Beck’s She’s A Woman, from Blow By Blow. You might well hear it on future Alice In Chains recordings. Cantrell is a fan.
“It was a different feel, but it was so fucking expressive!” he says. “I had never seen that clip of Jeff Beck before, and then Joe was like, ‘I’ve got one of these, man. We should try this!’ So he whipped that thing out. I believe the Bag is what you’re hearing on Vilified and Throw Me a Line.”
I Want Blood is out now via Double J Music/Virgin. You can read the full interview with Jerry Cantrell in the latest issue of Guitar World.
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