If you play guitar or bass, you need
to know about Hovercraft. Why you ask. Well if you like to play overpriced shit
that was made by someone that does not know the difference between a Celestion
Vintage 30 speaker and a Radial snow tire, go ahead do not learn about Hovercraft. But if you want
to be educated about a place that is ran
by musicians, that will actually converse with you about the gear you are inquiring about, then this is a must
read for you. Oprah has just put this on her best musical gear reading list.
Simply put, Hovercraft is a musicians dream.
If Hovercraft is Oz then the man with
the very golden plan would be Nial McGaughey. Enjoy yourself as I take a walk
down the road of golden amps and cabs.
Gaff- How did you get into this type
of work?
Nial- Well, I actually started a business called Solid
Cables in Pasadena, about 13-14 years ago, while I was doing that company I met
Dan who owned an amp company, I actually did modifications on amps for him,
music manufacturing is small so you get to know other people, ended up doing
pedals, and what not, long story short I ended up falling into doing amps on
the side. When I moved to Portland I said what the hell I will start making an
amp under my name and it snowballed pretty quickly, I made an amp on my couch
basically by hand, then started building other ones, and it started going,
going, going. I am a bit of a scavenger,
a garage sale guy, so I figured out that I can take other parts of broken amps
or perform modifications on other amps and get the part way cheaper than if I
was to purchase the part brand new from a supplier and build amps that way. Also, looking to keep the price down,
realized this is a great way to make an amp, a really good sounding amp for not
much money. I realized there was a big gap between the 150 dollar tube amps you
can buy all day long by the pallet at Guitar Center and the 3 grand boutique
amps, there wasn’t anything in the middle that was like really good sounding or
well made. Shit I could do that and the results speak for themselves, and it
grew organically. There is an appetite or market for them, so I hired a few
guys to make guitar cables. They are guitar makers and musicians interested in
other aspects so let’s try doing other stuff, so we ended up being a soup to
nuts shop, where we can be working on motorcycles one day, amps, pedals, or
whatever, anything that is interesting or weird that has something to do with
music gear, we have taken it on or built it.
Gaff- How did you get into working on
motorcycles, are you guys doing fabrication and electronics work?
Nial- Yup,
a lot of the hand fabrication, the motorcycle thing is like Hovercraft, finding
used bikes that don’t go for a lot of money and are reliable good motorcycles
and I looked at the way they design the bikes, I like old motorcycles and
really cool designs, I look at the bones and re-architect the way it looks and
sometimes I can find off the shelf parts but a lot of the times I have to hand
fabricate the stuff, the electronics, the lighting, the appearance is all done
in the house, using a hacksaw, bench vice, grinder and a drill press built
fender support or whatever.
Gaff-That is insane. How long have you
been in Portland doing this type of thing?
Nial- I lived here twice, once in the early 90’s,
met a lot of people when I was playing in bands, and then I moved back in 2009.
I got a job doing game software testing for a company that did contracting work
for Microsoft. So in a kind of roundabout way, that was my escape hatch to get
the hell out of LA.
Gaff- Are there favorite types of amps
that you like to work on, say a Sunn Model T as opposed to a Plexi?
Nial- Actually, I am the type of person that if
everyone likes the color blue, I like yellow. Wherever the crowd goes is where
I am not. Working with 65 amps and knowing a lot of other boutique builders,
and doing a lot of other amp stuff, I kept seeing the same thing over and over
again. This is a Marshall clone, a Plexi clone, everyone had their hamburger,
French fries and milkshake stuff, what about the other amps that people want?
There are a lot of people out there looking for
Matamps, Sunn T’s. Amps that are kind of rare. There is a lot of stuff that no
one has tried to make, there are examples but they are 3 grand. So I actually
built the hamburger and fries amp first to get a background, then started
researching the oddball amps, and listening to those because I couldn’t find a
real one. Like Jimmy Page had a custom Hiwatt made for him that had distortion
and gain and channel switching that other Hiwatt’s did not have and there was
only one. So I made one to sit with and hear it. By doing this it actually gave
me a background to know what circuits do. I guess the third phase of my
evolution was that I can take all these diff flavors and turn them into
something unique; like hybridize them or blend certain parts of that, build
other bits, an example would be Hiwatt tone controls are amazing, but the power
circuit is incredibly stiff and almost everyone I know that has played would
say, where is the gain?
Oh well you
have to turn it up until your eyeballs are rattling out of your head to get a
crunch, that is ridiculous. I had to do a bit of problem solving. So that is how it has evolved. Some are
uniquely designed, some are pretty by the letter, but usually those are a
request for someone that lives in a foreign country and wants a Model T and they
aren’t available for any price in their country and always wanted one. Alright
I will build them one of those, but I do other stuff that is really awesome and
stuff that is dumb but it has been a learning experience the whole time.
Gaff- Are there instances when you
will get a request for something that really isn’t up your alley?
Nial- Yeah, perfect example, couple guys crawl out
of the woodwork, and say there is one boutique amp that is being made for 5
grand and will you make me one? My initial response is no, I do not want to rip
off another company and just make something that is already being made, cloning
a boutique amp, the person is alive and the amp is still available. I do not
feel good about making the amp and I won’t. I don’t think it is right to do
that. I have had other people request stuff, I don’t know if it is their
experience level with amps is there, or they are asking for stuff that is crazy.
An example, I had a guy ask me to make two amps in one, with 2 sets of power
tubes and transformers, and all this other stuff. Just because they had an idea
that they want an amp that is two amps in all this other stuff, engineering
stuff that is kind of ridiculous, by ridiculous I mean using a 10 pound sledge
hammer to kill an ant. Just buy two amps.
I say I can do that but the amount of money it is
going to cost you is not worth it. It would be like a guy buying a Ferrari to
go to the corner store to buy groceries; just walk! I treat it like it is a
learning opportunity for both of us and I explain why. I just don’t come out
and say no. I will also get guys that will change their minds 2 or 3 times thru
the build process, I want a fender blackface, now I want a high power gain, so
I will usually stop and ask the person what are they really looking for, what
do you want? What type of music do you play and do you want pedals and what
kind of band is it? Hopefully I have a good suggestion for them and maybe it is
a problem solving thing where it is almost like talking to a doctor or a
therapist, ok well if you only use this one effect once, you probably do not
need to add an effects loop and I can save you some money. So that is usually how
that is solved.
Gaff- Do people get pretty wacky with
the electronic requests they make?
Nial- That is a pretty typical thing, a lot of
people read stuff on the internet and they take it as gospel, and then they get
a thing in their head and if that thing is not in, they are not happy.
Gaff- I would imagine that people ask
if I put a switch on an amp will it do this or that. Do you have to be
incredibly patient or do you deal with more people that are amp savvy?
Nial- There are examples, some get it right away,
again I try to explain it as well as I can and I try to be as neutral as I can,
I get frustrated if someone is, shall we say challenging, I have to go back and
forth, and then take a break from the conversation because I am tearing the
hair that is left on my head out. I am not here to be an educator I am here to
make amps, and I don’t wanna be a dick and tell them to search on Google and
get back to me. I try my best but yes, some people just do not get it.
Gaff- I think that there are a lot of
false impressions or people may watch too much television when it comes to
sound of an instrument?
Nial-One of my favorites is when they read an
article from a Guitar Player magazine; Eddie Van Halen, is a perfect example,
he would purposely mislead people that were trying to copy his sound, he would
say stuff like, “ I put parts from a drill inside my guitar.” Just wacky
whatever stuff and people take it as gospel and they are saying to themselves,
“Well I need to put drill parts into my guitar now.” Or they will say I wanna
get the sound just like it is on that album and I know the player used a Hiwatt.
Well, he also used Hiwatt and about 50 pedals and post processing, you are
hearing a chain.
Gaff- So now you are based in
Portland, you have the amps, cabs, pedals, motorcycles, how many people do you
have working with you these days?
Nial- Well that depends who is on tour at the
time, I would say 8, right now I have 4
guys out on tour so we are pretty small right now, depending on the days,
between 3 and 4. A couple of the guys that work for me play in a band, Witch
Mountain. They just got back from tour.
Gaff- I was really lucky, I worked
with Alyssa Herrman and she was amazing; she answered every question I had and
was so easy to work with. It must be nice to have such solid people working for
you.
Nial- It very much is.
Gaff- I see that you are making a head
for Scott Reeder-
Nial- Yeah, I am launching a new bass amp company,
partnering with Doug that owns Jet City amplifiers. We are doing a bass amp
only company, high end designs under this company Bison, amps for Scott Reeder,
Abbey Travis, we will be doing more bass amps in the future. Those amps will be
higher priced partly because of the wattage and the iron that is involved. We
use Mercury Magnetics custom transformers, we will be using higher end
components, so they will be a different price range and they will be really
custom, custom stuff. We are trying to push the boundaries on Tube bass amps.
We are working with a specific genre of music doing these things.
Part of it is mad scientist; like I wonder what a
sextet of KT 150’s would sound like, doing shit that no one else has done.
Basically I am scratching an itch that is out there. I do not know of anyone
using a sextet of KT 150’s. I also over the years have gotten people as friends
such as Scott Reeder, and he will say to me, “Goddam is there a better bass amp
out there than blah, blah, blah.” I keep hearing that, I guess if there isn’t
then I should see what I can do because I know I can build a better mouse trap.
Gaff- Reeder is the one that actually
turned me on to you guys. I bought the Burnt Orange v1 faceplate Head.
Nial- There is a lot of history with that thing.
Billy brought that with him from SF, we were able to get 3 face plates out of
it. He was remodeling his studio, and said, “Man I know you used wood for
stuff, do you want the desktop?” I was like are you fucking kidding me, hell
yeah. That was really awesome of him.
Gaff- Is their one of your amps that
is the best selling?
Nial- The Dwarvenaut is the best seller by far,
partly because of the price and it is quite a loud amp for 20 watts, also some
of the look of the amp and the versatility, not everyone gigs out, so playing
at home with a cool head and cab, the Dwarvenaut makes sense. Kylesa tours with
a 20 watt Dwarvenaut through a 4x12. Another nice thing is that it doesn’t
weigh much. It is a good all round amp. Next would be the Falcon, then whatever
else weirdo shit we are doing. The Elder Giant bass amps have started becoming really
popular but we haven’t made a lot of them partially because fewer bass players
are using tube amps and they are a little more expensive.
Gaff- Do you foresee more bass
players, because of the warmth of tubes or players in general enjoy using your
heads because there is room to run pedals?
Nial- To be honest with you I was a guitar to cord
to amp guy when I was gigging, not much else. If an amp comes out of the shop,
I want it to sound amazing without pedals, and that actually has become a
technical issue with some amps because I actually push the gain itself very
high, which does things for fidelity, and response, overtones, all the cool
shit that people want out of a tube amp. The unfortunate thing, because I am
running the levels so high within the amp, that if you pound the shit out of it
with certain pedals you can damage the amp. An example, when I was prototyping
our fuzz pedal, I had a Plexi KT66 kit
amp and it was sounding glorious through testing, until the point when then KT66
power tube blew, too much signal going through. It sounded amazing; it was
rattling the internal organs through my body. The amp was set at about 5, and
then I hit a huge open chord and it went, pop, then I ran my numbers, oops. I
probably should not be doing this.
Gaff- I would say that because of the
way the amps sound that if you are in the first row, it is like being punched
in the face. The Hovercraft amps have a 1-2-7 combo, they hit you face, then
the gut, then the face.
Which leads me to cabs; did that happen
because the cabs you were playing, you were not digging?
Nial- It is mostly because I have customer
requests. I have been there where I have this matching head and wouldn’t it be
cool to have the matching cab? I was really thinking about stupid shit like
that. There are limitations to the cabs that are out there. So, I knew that
this was something else I could push this direction or that direction. I can
get more articulation, or get more bass or have a clean clinical sound. The cab
is an intregal part but my god, the speakers are so important. Usually unless
someone is local, I try and match someone with a good cab suggestion to try out
to get started with, because of shipping. I ship cabs all over the place and
they get the shit kicked out of them, and the shipping cost these days is
outrageous. Sometimes, I will say look, you can get a great sound out a
Marshall JCM 900 loaded with real English Celestions and you can probably get
one on Craigslist locally for 400 bucks. The knowledge and the learning have
opened my eyes to what is possible. I have heard 2x12’s sound better than
4x12’s because of the cab dimensions with speakers. Again it is part of the
process of what sound are you going for, do you have an example of the sound?
There are a lot of sacred cows out there, your cab has to be made out of this
or 24 carat gold plated wire, or you won’t get that sound, well that is a bunch
of shit. I have heard so many cabs blow away other cabs because of the
dimensions or the speakers, or wiring or grille cloth.
Gaff- Do you ever have people that
want you to make crazy cabs?
Nial- I get people requesting a 6x15, requesting
all kind of stuff, I guess just doing it for the giggle, I love being able to
do stuff like that. Generally speaking, I don’t have the time, but yeah, 10x10
bass cab would be kind of fun to make, what the hell, why not. The thing that
is funky about cabs is that there is so much labor involved that after you pay
for the all the pieces, the wood, the parts, assuming you are scratch building
something and designing it, after all that is said and done, we basically lose
money on every cab we make, and that is pretty common among amp makers, you
will hear that from everybody. I have seen some cabs out there that are stained
hardwood it is beautiful and then there are other ones that are just plywood
and vinyl tolex and standard off the wall speakers; why the hell is it 1500
bucks for a 4x12, that is crazy.
Gaff- Do most people do their homework
before talking to you about cabs?
Nial- Usually when someone is inquiring about a
cab, there is a Japanese chef term called Omakase, which means ‘trust the chef’.
So, basically they are trusting me to give them a good recommendation, and
again that deals with what type of music, do you have recorded examples, and
usually I can get things pretty quickly. Also, the genre of sound is pretty
narrow; I do not get some guy saying I need to play High on Fire and then
Chicken Picking. It makes it a lot easier and I when I know, and I have sat in
front of these speakers, it’s pretty easy to put the recipe together, and then
it boils down to how much weight do you need, how loud or not, 90 percent of
the time I can come up with a good mix. If you are playing with a shit ton of
gain or fuzz, you have got a larger amount of selection available then if you
are playing an ES 335 for jazz. It is quality, quantity and in between.
Gaff- When I had emailed you, you had
told me exactly what to get which was great and made it a very easy process. I think
talking to the builder is key. It seems with you all, you will actually spend
the time and the fact that you get involved, from a musicians standpoint is rather
huge. You will read that some builders will not budge, it is what it is. What
is your thought on that?
Nial- Well
usually my first question is what is your budget, if a guy says sky is the
limit, that actually makes things harder, but if a guy has about 300 bucks and
needs a 4x12, I can figure something out. Also, hopefully their expectations
are fairly realistic. That is usually how I handle it. The nice thing is because
I can get fairly some pretty good deals on used gear around here, or broken or
empty stuff, I can look at the cab and assess what materials are out of it, and
this cab is going to soak up a lot of treble, so we need to put in some fairly
bright speakers and some fairly thin grille cloth material, and then this one
has a massive air box size, I can tailor things as best as possible. Really on
cabs it comes down to what is the person’s budget, and what is the application?
If you are playing at home, a good 2x12 would do all you need to do. You really
do not need a 4x12 to play alone, or is it for studio recording?
Gaff- You have so much shit going on,
talk to me about Hover Fest and when did that first hit you?
Nial- Well, the Portland music community is pretty
small. I do not know everyone but I know a lot of people, and Nathan and Todd,
my de-facto partners in the festival, they have put on a couple of festivals’
over the years here in Portland previously. This summer, for the outdoor
concert season, whatever you wanna call it, I don’t know what happened, there are
no heavy bands, not even any hard rock guitar bands performing at any of the
outdoor shows and I thought that was ridiculous. I have had a few bands ask me
if I had thought of putting together a festival. So hanging out with Nathan and
Todd I brought it up and they said, “We could do this.” I was like; let’s do it
and the pieces kind of fell into place. If it wasn’t for those 2 guys there is
no way in hell this would have happened. I would have lost my mind a long time
ago. They are both, this isn’t their first rodeo. Nathan is a booking agent and
has done festivals all by himself. Todd has the facilities, he does the nuts
and bolts kind of stuff to making one of
these happen, and it fell into place and everybody that is on the bill has been
a band that has been interested in doing
something like this anyways so it was a perfect time and opportunity, so we hit
the go button.
Gaff- In terms of bands, are you all
friendly with the ones on the festival? Also, in terms of gear, is it all Hovercraft
gear?
Nial- Basically how I am looking at this whole
thing; is that it is a friends and family thing; that just happens to have live
music. Everybody that is playing I would go to see anyway because I love their
damn bands. As far as gear is concerned, I don’t care what you play. I
understand that you need things to get your sound, I am not gonna stand in your
way, that is completely ridiculous. Artistically, it is almost insane. It is
like being a professionally bike rider and here, use these roller skates and do
just as well. The deal with the bands is we will have more than enough
Hovercraft backline, to keep things simple for change over but I do not care if
they use their own stuff. I do not care if anyone doesn’t use our equipment;
that is not the point. The point is to have fun and make some noise.
We make some cool things but we can’t be all
things to all people, I get that. Far be it from me from standing in front of
anyone for getting their sound. I have been there when the backline sucks ass,
I can’t get any of my sounds, and it turns into a horrible gig.
Gaff- Do you see yourself putting on
anymore shows?
Nial- The festival is a try it this year and see
what happens type of thing. Obviously it would have to be in the summer because
of the weather. I would love to have
another one, but let’s see what happens this year. Obviously if it goes really
well I would not say no.
Gaff- You guys send your own cables
with your heads. Have you always done this?
Nial- I have always included our cables with the
amps mainly because I know how a lot of musicians are. They have had the same crappy piles of cables
for a long time and they don’t really work. You plug something in and it sounds
weak and crappy and you realize it is a bad cable. So for me, it is deadly
important to make sure that when someone un-boxes the amp, plugs it in for the
first time that they are getting the best possible experience with the very
first chord they get out of their guitar. I have seen some of the cords that
come with some of these amps and scratch my head and said why the hell didn’t you
just spend the extra dollar instead of using this piece of crap cable that will
break and will cause a failure, or possibly a warranty because they used this
piece of shit cable. It is mind boggling what happens from a business
perspective when a company short changes their gear; we have this amazing $2,500
head that comes with a five cent cable, well that is not going to sound good. I
don’t believe on short changing things that are simple to make and will sound
better. So many things with gear, I have told people that if you just changed
the wiring in that 4x12 cab, it would sound so much better, people do not
believe that, and I have witnessed that happen.
Gaff- If a lot more people sent cables
of this quality, you would have much happier musicians. Speaking of musicians
are there any that you get excited about that use your gear?
Nial- When I heard Kylesa was using our gear, I
got some tingles, Tad Doyle used our gear. It is the music itself that I hear
that I really get excited by, I hear the music coming out of the monitors, I am
like that is my amp making that sound. That is really what I get really happy
about.
Gaff- Did I read that you guys are
going to start making guitars?
Nial- We have made a few, a couple have been
rebuilt, recycled out of existing guitars. We usually will take something
boring and putting a cool paint finish on it, replacing the pickups. Cutting a
piece out of plywood, let’s see what happens. I can make a great amp, can I
make a great guitar from scratch? I’m not sure yet. The question is can I design something that
is really cool that I would want to play? That is the impetus of it.
Gaff- In terms of the straight up
builds and the everyday aspects of Hovercraft, from wiring, tolexing,
packaging, do you have people say interns ever come into the shop to help out
at all.
Nial- It depends on what my time looks like. I am
doing the books, the graphic design, the marketing, the emails, web site, all
that shit and then I will be like, oh wait, I have to wire up the heaters or
fabricate this thing. The answer is it depends. If the trash needs to go out,
then I bring out the trash. There are
times when I will over a weekend work from soup to nuts get a whole piece done.
Gaff- So everything that goes out of
the shop has your approval.
Nial- Yup, nothing leaves that doesn’t sound good.
Multiple people listen to the amps before they go out. If it sounds goofy, it
is not going in the box. I learned from working at a record label; first
impressions mean everything. The first note you hear is everything. If someone
takes out an amp and it sucks, that is awful. My nightmare is something was
messed up in shipping and if I would be on the other side, I would be pissed.
It is really hard to get back from that moment, kind of ruins it for you.
Gaff- The thing that I am hoping is
that you guys blow up. Every person that I have spoken to about your gear is
crazy about it and has nothing but the best things to say. Also, working with
Alyssa, she made everything so easy and smooth that you can tell people stand
behind your project and dig working there. In this day and age you cannot say
that about every place.
Nial- I have to look at myself in the mirror at
the end of the day and ask myself if I did the best I could; I sleep well at
night. If it has my name on it, it is going to be good. If I cannot keep it fun
or keep a handle on it, then fuck it. The shit that comes out of my shop has to
be awesome. People that are using my gear to create things need to be inspired
by it. It may not happen every time; who knows, but I want people to be
inspired and make great music. In a weird existentialist kind of way, if I am
improving the quality of music and art through the shit I do, then I am making
the world a better place. To me it is very important.
I really want to Thank Nial, Cat Jones
for setting this up, and Alyssa Herrman for helping me very much with my own
dealings with Hovercraft. You all have been so incredibly willing and helpful.
That is not a trait that is shared by all in this business of letting the rock
roll.
If you truly want to see art at its
finest, then look at the artist and what is included in the portfolio they have
accumulated over the years. It is the end product that we as a culture judge
the artist by. It is rare to find an artist smiling brighter when his piece of
work has enabled others to find their true calling by using the artist work to
truly fulfill their goals.
I would say Nial is a complete artist
in every being of the word.
Eat a peach, Gaff
Hoverfest Info
We are proud to announce the final lineup of the
first annual HOVERFEST, happening on August 23rd at noon in the alleyway behind Cravedog, Inc. in North
Portland:Yob
DANAVA
Acid King
Witch Mountain
Eight Bells
Wounded Giant
Holy Grove
Mountain God
DANAVA
Acid King
Witch Mountain
Eight Bells
Wounded Giant
Holy Grove
Mountain God
Tickets are $15 in advance and can be found HERE: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/784344
Only 500 tickets will be sold, so get yours ASAP.
More info can be found here: http://southerncrosspr.com/post/92542289643/danava-acid-king-wounded-giant-added-to-hoverfest
See you there.
For more information:
