Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon is well known for his musical skits, but it turns out that his skills extend beyond performing and into more technical realms.
Speaking on UK TV show Sunday Brunch, British artist James Bay recalled the time that he appeared on Fallon’s show, and how the host helped him out with a sound issue that he was experiencing.
“I remember going to Jimmy Fallon, and he’s a bit of a musician himself,” says Bay. “And I had a certain type of pickup in my electric guitar, and with some of the lights in the studio it was making a weird buzz and he said ‘James, that was a great take, but would you like to do it again?’”
Having observed the performance, it seems that Fallon knew exactly where the problem was coming from.
“He said - and this is a bit geeky - ‘are those P-90 pickups?’” recalls Bay. “‘Yeah they are,’ I said. And he said [to the floor manager] ‘Turn off this light, this light and this light [pointing].’ They turned them off and the buzz coming off this guitar got a bit quieter. He really knows what’s going on, and then we did another take and it was a bit better.”
The guitar in question, we assume, is the Epiphone Century that Bay played when he appeared on The Tonight Show in 2016, which does indeed feature a single coil Gibson P-90 pickup. We’re guessing that Fallon had experienced the issue before, and so knew how to resolve it.
James Bay’s new album, Changes All The Time, is available now.
