“I just don’t see them as, ‘Oh, a nice guitar,’ or ‘a nice pedal.’ I see the hours behind them. I see, ‘Wow, somebody really committed hours and energy and their soul’”: Seal is a secret tonehound – and he has great taste in gear

Singer-songwriter Seal playing acoustic guitar .

Seal has revealed himself to be a not-so-secret tonehead and guitar aficionado. Truth be told, the Kiss from a Rose hitmaker admits that it was thanks to the instrument that he found his true identity as an artist and songwriter, which led him to land a record deal and paved the path for the prolific career he has enjoyed thus far.

“When I first started writing songs, I was writing from my voice, but then the type of songs I was writing, they varied in style and and identity, or lack thereof,” he tells Reverb, “which is why I picked up an instrument, and in this case, the guitar, because it would kind of ground me.”