Six-string source of inspiration: the guitar that changed Kevin Shields’ life
During the 1980s and 1990s, numerous subgenres began to rise within the rock scene as artists became more experimental, defying the laws of modern music as it was then known. Post-punk and new wave stemmed from the punk movement of the 1970s, and it was in the late ’80s and ’90s that we began to see even more niche rock subgenres, such as grunge or nu-metal, take form. Also during this time period was when music saw the birth of a new movement: shoegaze.
Initially pioneered by groups such as Slowdive or Lush, it’s Irish rock group My Bloody Valentine who are regarded as the official founders of shoegaze rock. Thanks to the band’s fuzzy and romantic musical expressions, primarily expressed through unconventional recording methods and compositions, My Bloody Valentine, though never achieving huge mainstream success, are one of the most highly influential bands in rock music.
The band’s distinctive sound is largely credited to the band’s vocalist and lead guitarist, Kevin Shields. Known for the unique methods he took on to harness his signature distorted and ethereal guitar sounds, Shields was one of the driving forces behind the magnitude of My Bloody Valentine’s musicality. Utilising a number of different instruments and audio equipment, there is, in fact, one guitar that Shields says he favours above the rest. After all, every axe-wielder surely has a preferred weapon of choice.
In a 2018 interview with Rolling Stone, Shields said it took nearly five years of working with My Bloody Valentine to figure out which guitar it was that worked best for him. After jumping around between a plethora of Fender and Gibson knockoffs, it wasn’t until a friend loaned him a 1964 Fender Jazzmaster that Fields finally found his Excalibur, the same instrument that would establish the sound of the band’s defining 1991 album Loveless as he incorporated warbling and tuning effects.
“It was like a new toy, really,” Shields said. “I could feel it. It was something that I wasn’t thinking about. I found it fascinating playing that way. I like the way the sounds move.” Shields was able to use that Jazzmaster in the spring of 1988, when his friend Bill Carey let him borrow his while My Bloody Valentine were recording an album for Creation Records.
“He had a Gretsch and a Jazzmaster,” Shields recalled. “The Jazzmaster happened to be a really great guitar. They’d booked us three or four days in the studio, and then I discovered the tremolo arm pretty much in that session. We did the You Made Me Realise EP, and the first song I played it on was ‘Thorn’, and the second time I played it was on a song called ‘Slow’. I realised how good the Jazzmaster was later. Over the years, I hardly ever came across anything as good as that.”
With the Jazzmaster’s tremolo arm, Shields realised he could incorporate techniques he was using on a synthesiser into his guitar playing, resulting in a completely unique sound entirely. While Carey still owns that legendary Jazzmaster, it’s safe to say Shields has plenty to spare in his own collection. When asked by Rolling Stone how many he does own, Shields replied, “Not that many good ones. Only about 12, maybe 14.”
