If you’ve never heard Robert Jon & The Wreck in action, then imagining the boogie of ZZ Top combined with the Southern twang of Lynyrd Skynyrd would be a good place to start.
Renowned for impactful live performances, the band have gone from strength to strength in recent years – and being signed to Joe Bonamassa’s Journeyman record label has guaranteed them their rightful share of the limelight.
For their new album, they booked themselves into producer Dave Cobb’s residential studio in Savannah, Georgia, in order to live and breathe the music they were creating. We rounded up the band’s guitarists – rhythm ace and vocalist Robert Jon Burrison and Epiphone Firebird and Gibson SG Special-toting lead player Henry James Schneekluth – to find out more.
Henry James Schneekluth: “It definitely makes things feel a bit more homey. And I think having the studio and the living quarters together brought cohesiveness. If I had a random idea or whatever, it’s like, the guitars are right there, you know? I didn’t have to wait to go to the studio and plug anything in to hear what I wanted to do.”
Robert Jon Burrison: “The nice part about being out there together is that we were fully immersed in the record. You know, if we had an idea at night, the studio’s downstairs. We didn’t have anything other than the record to focus on, which I think was a great way to do it. If I could do it like that again, I would.”
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Did you write in the studio or go in with the songs fully prepared?
Robert Jon: “We did a lot of writing in the studio and we changed a lot of stuff around, too; that’s kind of how Dave Cobb does things. We came in with some songs we had fleshed out already and even those changed a lot, too. We were writing lyrics at night, upstairs. It was just like this machine that was working all around the clock every day. It was great.”
Henry James: “Every song was so unique, so there were no two songs that were exactly the same as far as process goes. Maybe one or two of them were more or less accurate to what we had been working on, and then when we got to the studio, it was pretty much like ‘cut and paste’.”
Do you think this is an avenue you’d like to explore again, maybe for the next album?
Henry James: “Yeah. I’ve actually done this a couple times before with previous bands, where we either set up a studio in a house or rented somewhere where it was like a home studio setup. So it’s not unfamiliar to me and I definitely enjoy it. It definitely makes things much easier.”
I have an Epiphone Sheraton, too; that is just a workhorse. I put TV Jones pickups in it and it sounds great
Robert Jon
What gear did you take into the studio?
Robert Jon: “I used my Eastman Juliet. In the past, I’ve taken in a handful of other guitars, just to give all the guitars some love. I have an Epiphone Sheraton, too; that is just a workhorse. I put TV Jones pickups in it and it sounds great. It’s just not very versatile when it comes to touring around the world. But on this one we mostly had just our road gear with us.”
Henry James: “I was very excited to bring my own signature model into the studio, which I have with Eastman guitars. It’s a Juliet – Robert also plays a Juliet, but this one is the Henry James Signature Juliet – and it’s got mini-humbuckers, just like a Firebird, and a Bigsby-style vibrola tailpiece. That made its way onto just as many tracks as my Firebird.
“Those were the main two guitars that I brought into the studio. Aside from that, I used a lot of Dave’s gear. He has a ton of vintage guitars and Gibson Custom Shop stuff and vintage Fenders, and so it was those two guitars and a lot of Dave’s stuff.”
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Did you take your own amps into the studio or use the ones Dave Cobb had to hand?
Henry James: “Yeah, a lot of Dave’s amps and things like that. I also brought some of my own pedals, but, really, most of the tones on the record were the guitar straight into the amp.
“I mean, there’s really very few tracks on the record that aren’t just a guitar straight into an amp, or maybe with a boost or a fuzz on it, and then there’s occasionally a wah-wah. On the title track, we actually had a ’64 Fender Strat and figured out how to rig it into an actual Leslie speaker. That kind of Beatles, Clapton-y sort of sound was very cool.”
Robert Jon: “We had, like, an amp village in another room with every amp, I mean, every amp, that they had at the studio, plus our amps. And we were just trying out which one made the most sense on whatever track. So I couldn’t tell you exactly which amps were used more. I have a Vox AC15 that I usually bring into everything, and it’s my standard go-to option unless we’re looking for something completely different.”
So, Robert, with the Vox AC15 amp, were you channeling that Jimmy Page ‘small amp, massive sound’ approach?
Robert Jon: “Yeah, yeah. I mean, it breaks up a lot quicker than even an AC30 and nowadays, with the way mics and the PAs work, usually the sound guys don’t want you to be too loud on stage because they want to be able to control it a little bit more. So it’s always worked for me live and in the studio, too.”
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Do you also go for smaller amps in the studio, Henry?
Henry James: “Yeah, I tend to lean towards smaller amps in the studio, too. Tend to size it down. I don’t like to use anything bigger than a single 12-inch speaker [cab] in the studio. Maybe occasionally I’ll run a 2×12, but, yeah, I just use small amps. I have a couple of Supros that I record with that have just one 10-inch speaker. And those are the amps that I tour with in the States.
“They make wonderful recording amps when you turn them up as well. And then I’ve also got a vintage National amp that’s got two eight-inch speakers in it, and it records amazingly well. There was this low-wattage Marshall head, the Lead And Bass 20-watt model, and apparently it had been modded by Dumble, from what [Dave] was telling me. I plugged that into one of my single 12 cabs, put a mic on it, and it just sounded incredible.
“And that is on a lot of the lead guitar tracks on the album, a lot of the solos use that. Then Dave also had this little Benson combo amp – it couldn’t have been more than five watts – and that was on quite a few things as well.”
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Did you use pedals in the studio?
Robert Jon: “I use them live, but not in the studio. You know, being a rhythm player, you need to have that solid rhythm in the back and then, if we need to overdub any of the fun stuff, we’ll just play around with what pedals Henry brought. But live, I use a Fulltone Full Drive, just for a little more crunch, a tuner, and then a MXR Micro [Amp] Boost. And that’s my entire pedalboard. I just use the boost when I need it.”
Henry James: “I’m always kind of tweaking. At the moment I have a Silktone Fuzz+, and I’ve got a couple of pedals from this brand called Isle Of Tone that are really, really great. And then for my wah pedal, I’ve been using the Xotic XW-1 for years. It just does the Clyde McCoy, Hendrix-y thing, really, really well.”
Do you find that songs that you’ve written evolve when you play them live?
Robert Jon: “Oh yeah. And we let them evolve, you know? We let them breathe a little bit. When you’re in the studio, you’re in the studio; you’re hoping that it sounds good. But when you play them live, you actually get to feel a response from people and you can feel like, ‘Well, let’s let that solo move a little bit more. Let’s take our time.’ Or, ‘Let’s let the ending ramp up into something completely different.’”
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Some players say they enjoy the studio experience, while others say it’s just the live experience that does it for them. Which side do you both lean towards?
Henry James: “I think because we tour so much, it gets to a point where the live thing wears itself out after a certain point. Not that I don’t love doing it, but I think every studio experience is very unique, and I think it’s taught me to really savor that moment of the creative process and really live in the moment with the music and the creation of it. I’ve found as time has gone on, I’ve gotten a lot of satisfaction out of creating, so at this exact moment I would actually say I lean slightly more towards the studio.”
Robert Jon: “Playing live is where it’s at for me. That’s everything. But everyone’s different, everyone has their own love of the game, and that’s why I think COVID was a whole different world because we weren’t playing live. We were just like, ‘Well, we can take this time to write…’ And I’m like, ‘But why? We can’t go play live.’ Playing live is definitely where my joy comes from.”
