Jack Garratt on Stratocaster Magic and the Wizardry of Stevie Ray Vaughan

Challenging. Innovative. Multi-hyphenate.

All these words have been used to describe Jack Garratt.

He’s a singer, with a voice that ranges from a grizzly growl to a gossamer falsetto. He’s a guitarist, having first picked one up at the age of 4 or 5. He’s a self-taught piano player. He’s a drummer. He’s a producer. He’s … just incredibly talented.

That fact is immediately obvious after taking in just a few minutes of one of his gripping live shows. Garratt sets up behind what he calls a “mission control deck”, a rig that includes a keyboard, drum pad, microphone and guitar, and bounces between each like an octopus.

The Garratt experience is one many have had the pleasure of viewing as he toured the world over the last few years on the success of his 2016 R&B-, soul-, jazz- and pop-influenced debut album, Phase. Quite a journey for the 25-year-old bearded Brit.

Garratt got his start in music at a very young age at the encouragement of his father. But it wasn’t until he saw the great Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble’s 1983 concert film Live at the El Mocambo that his musical universe really opened up.

“I found that VHS through my dad, and I just burned that tape out,” Garratt said. “That show lives in infamy. I watched it every day when I came home from school. I was mesmerized by the magic I was seeing. When I was little, I obviously didn’t fully understand what I was seeing, but I was so captivated by it.

“That one is just remarkable. Every solo was a melody! That’s what captivated me. He was also doing all that showmanship, playing the guitar behind his head and all that. I was just baffled.”

Garratt recently hooked up with Fender to dive deeper on how Vaughan influenced his style, how he records his layered tunes and the rush of performing a guitar solo in front of a live audience.

”I Started Playing Guitar as a Kid. My Dad’s Version of the Story Is He Taught Me Everything I Know. My Version Differs Slightly.”

“He put me on the pathway to the guitarist I’m still becoming. When he was about 17 or 18, he taught himself how to play the guitar by just listening to his favorite records. He put a guitar in my hands when I was about 4 or 5.

“I remember he would walk into our living room, and I had figured out to play a couple of melodies, like classic stuff that you would absolutely expect someone to want to learn when they’re playing guitar for the first time. The James Bond theme. The Mission Impossible theme. Stuff like that. I also learned I was getting better, testing my fingers out. My ears just tried to find the guitars in those songs.”

”I Just Couldn’t Take My Eyes Off Stevie Ray Vaughan. I Was Watching a Magician.”

“He does this one trick—and I’ve seen him do it in videos since—it’s the trick where he spins around and suddenly the guitar is behind his back still playing it. He is in the spin, unclips his strap, brings the guitar around, re-clips it in and continues with the solo. When I was a kid, I didn’t see him unclip the strap. So, what I saw was a guitar passing through his body. It was so infused with his being, the guitar became his flesh and it just passed through him. Me as an 8-year-old, that’s what I believed!”

”Stevie Ray Vaughan Is the Reason I’m a Strat Player.”

“He just had this beautiful ingenuity and original thinking about how to play the blues. I’m still left with that same feeling of wonderment. That’s why I think he is, in my opinion, one of the greatest guitarists that ever lived. He’s still a magician, even though I know he’s not.

That’s why I’m a Strat guy, that’s why I only play rosewood fretboards, that’s why I like 3-Color Sunburst, heavy-gauge strings. My brain was just a sponge, watching this guy and trying to learn from him.”

”I Tried to Make My Own SRV Custom Strat.”

“I got a Mexican Strat with a rosewood fretboard. My sister, Ruth, bless her, bought me the custom sparkly sticker on the base of No. 1. She also got me. I turned it into an SRV custom, not by wiring or anything, but I wanted it to look like that. She also got me the red tortoishell pickguard. That’s still on it.

“Every guitar I’ve had since then, rosewood fingerboard, .011s, and everything else is my fingers. I try not to do too much … The thing I love the most about his sound is his fingers is what made his tone.”

”I Know What Tone I’m Looking to Get, and My Fingers and Ears Will Talk to Each Other.”

“When I’ve got a new bit of gear and play around with it, I set everything at zero and then figure out where to go from there. They’ve always done that. I taught myself to play the guitar, and I found the easiest way to do that was to let my ears and fingers talk to each other and not let my mind get in the way. It’s the same reason why I loved to play the trombone as a kid. It’s my ears and my eyes talking to each other and telling my hands what to do.

“When it comes to guitar tone, I try and only let the equipment I’m using add to whatever my fingers are trying to already do.”

”The Guitar Is an Extra Limb for Me.”

“I actually have a love/hate relationship with my guitar because it’s what I would consider to be my main instrument. Because of that I like to do easy things on it. I like to do the things that egotistically my ears will applaud myself. But that negative becomes a positive, where it makes me confident when I’m playing. That’s important. You’ve got to feel good about the instrument that you’re playing. So, I try and use it in the places that can challenge me and limit my ability to rely on the instrument.”

”The Show Can Go Wrong at Any Point, and That’s Part of the Fun of It.”

“I do one solo with the show—that’s a lie, I do more—but I’m supposed to do one solo in the show. And It’s at the end of ‘Worry’ the big finale. The one big guitar moment of the set. And I put it in there because it makes me feel good and it makes the crowd feel good. And I get to step away from the chaos I’ve created, with the drums and the synths and the drum pads on this spaceship deck-looking console. I get to step away from it and the audience can breathe. At that point, I’ve been on my way to making things possibly go wrong, and I think the audience feels that tension with me. It’s just me up there. So I get to step away, and everyone’s like, ‘Wait, nothing can go wrong now! It’s just him and a guitar, so let’s have 20 seconds of guilt-free fun.’

“I try to use the guitar in that way every time I use it. It’s a way for me to express myself in the most immediate way that I can. In a way that the audience can understand. I love playing the piano, but it doesn’t feel like an extension of my body when I’m playing it. Instead it feels like a very necessary, well-furnished room that I can feel comfortable in. I love playing the drums. The way I play them is so much fun to do. I play them standing up, sometimes with one hand. That’s my circus act, a way to show off my craft.”

”If I Can Give the Crowd the Best Possible Experience and They Leave as Exhausted as I Am, I’ve Done My Job.”

“Coming out with the guitar in the end is me kind of saying, ‘OK, you enjoyed the drums. You enjoyed the piano. You enjoyed the bass and the synth and everything. But you enjoyed the guitar, as well.’ The audience can go away with a complete feeling.

“Bringing the guitar in to the electronic world, there is a real limb or organ, a living piece of me. Like being into robotics and being impressed with the person who built the robot. That’s how I like to see it.”

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