Perhaps more than any other technique, slide playing separates the pros from the hobbyists. It requires laser-guided intonation and supreme control over string muting – and that’s just with a clean tone. But slide playing over black metal and raging distortion? That’s either foolish or plain next-level guitar playing.
Thankfully, for Joe Strong-Truscelli, guitarist with Colorado four-piece Wayfarer, his yearning, high-gain slide cries elevate the band’s double-kick-spattered, swaggering riff fury to new heights – indeed, the band call themselves “the pre-eminent Western American metal band”, and we’re not going to argue.
Yet for all his aptitude – just clock his slide playthroughs, recorded exclusively for GW, below – it took Strong-Truscelli three albums with the collective to bring the slide to the fore atop founding guitarist and frontman Shane McCarthy’s vicious riff cyclones.
“I first remember experimenting with slides during [third album] World’s Blood writing sessions, almost jokingly,” he recalls. “Back then, slides were used sparingly and only during clean and atmospheric sections. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but as Shane brought more western themes to the mix, the slide cautiously made its way into the compositions.
“Two albums later, American Gothic’s musical structures rely heavily on slide parts, beyond mere overdubs and clean atmospherics.”
Released at the tail end of 2023, American Gothic opens with the kind of rootsy flatpicking that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Buffalo Nichols or Cedric Burnside record.
Yet the acoustics are washed away by a tsunami of punishingly high-gain countrified blues – think Lynyrd Skynyrd running through 5150s – that seamlessly segues into more classically metal progressions, and then back to acoustics, for good measure.
For Strong-Truscelli – a guitarist raised on ’80s shredders Jason Becker, Kirk Hammett and Chuck Shuldiner – the transition to slide playing, especially over heavier contexts, has served up its fair share of challenges.
“A fully distorted slide guitar is an incredibly noisy beast,” he admits. “There’s a different dynamic to distorted slide playing. I feel it’s more of a subtractive game with distorted slides. Instead of trying to project the strings, it’s more like you’re actively taming them and playing off of the insane overtones and feedback to get the right sounds. No two run-throughs are ever the same.”
Quickly grabbing and putting away the slide while switching effects/channels can be a bit of a juggling act on dark and foggy stages
His rig isn’t exactly the most user-friendly for slide playing, either. Besides the molten gain of a Peavey 6505, a Gibson Explorer HP set up for metal shredding presents its own learning curve. “The low action coupled with a curved radius makes it very easy to choke out the strings,” Strong-Truscelli explains. “A very light touch is essential.”
Then there’s actually getting hold of the slide in the heat of battle. While later-in-life slide convert Paul Gilbert has developed a magnetic slide holder for quick switches, Strong-Truscelli has his own method.
“Velcroing the slide to the back of my headstock has been great for quick access,” he reveals. “Quickly grabbing and putting away the slide while switching effects/channels can be a bit of a juggling act on dark and foggy stages. I like to make sure the transitions are actually possible in a live situation, so I definitely consider that when writing a slide part.”
Although his shred credentials make the odd appearance on American Gothic (most notably, the epic sweeps of Black Plumes Over God’s Country), the guitarist has seen a shift in style since joining Wayfarer. David Gilmour is the biggest influence on his slide playing, while alternative heroes such as John McGeoch, Wovenhand’s David Eugene Edwards and Mikael Åkerfeldt inspire his more atmospheric and anarchic playing approaches.
“I like to intentionally lose traction with my playing, but in a controlled manner,” he muses. “I try to use whatever technique I can to mimic the qualities of other stringed folk instruments, such as a banjo or 12-string. If I can take a melody and throw in drones, unison notes, hammer-ons or whatever undulating bend my hands can muster, the riffs begin to take on a more chaotic and less on-the-nose quality.
“It’s an intentional aleatoric allowance of sorts. I think it makes for compelling textures.”
It’s this borderline-philosophical level of six-string nuance that enables Wayfarer to traverse multiple genres across the space of an album – and, more often than not, a single song – without it ever once feeling jarring or out of place.
A lot is said about guitar’s generational divide, but we’d rank Wayfarer among the pool of acts who can bridge the old guard and younger, more genre-fluid listeners.
As for where the band venture next, not even Strong-Truscelli can answer that question – but you can bet that ol’ metal tube will be accompanying him on their next journey.
“It’s always a surprise working with the guys and seeing what they bring to the table as musicians,” he enthuses. “Shane is very good at coming up with big-picture thematic ideas, and once those drop, I think it informs our collective creative sensibilities. It’s a very collaborative process.
“At the end of the day, I feel we’ve finally honed in on the musical vocabulary we’ve been searching for, and I’m stoked for what’s on the horizon.”
- American Gothic is out now via Profound Lore (USA)//Century Media Records (EU).
