The Helio Sequence guitar player and vocalist Brandon Summers is here today talking about his pedals, his guitar, and lactation. Helio Sequence plays tomorrow, Friday, Nov. 7th at Neumos with Tu Fawning and the Pale Pacific.

What kind of guitar do you play?
Summers: A Fender Telecaster Special with a Fender Jazzmaster neck. It’s changed over the years. The only thing on it that’s original is the body, made in Mexico. I got it from Benjamin (Weikel)’s little brother. I used to hate Telecasters, I played a Strat copy. I love the Telecaster now, I’ve done some work to the one I play.

Describe for me now that work.
Instead of a three-way selector for my pickups, I have a four-way.

A four-way?
The first selector is for a Humbucker on the neck. It’s great for a traditional sound. It’s twangy, with high end, and it’s got some bite. The second one is an out of phase selector that gets a hollow, chime like, Rickenbacker sound. The third is a coil tap for the Humbucker at the neck. It’s got a little more body. The fourth one’s a really heavy, wooly sounding Humbucker. It’s dark and crunchy without so much high end. It was the only one I played for a long time, then I had it rewired.

What is your backup guitar?
It’s a Guild S-100 Polara reissue. I found out from the serial number that it’s one of eight prototypes they made. I’m scared to do anything to it.

What pedals do you use?
The most important pedal for me is a George Dennis GD130 stereo delay / reverb. They’re made in Prague, Czech Repuplic. It’s the last pedal in my chain. My wife is from Czech Republic and I got to meet George once when we were there visiting. He’s a really eccentric dude. He sat in this little room chain smoking and showed me pictures of he and all these famous people who have his pedals. Like Santana and the Zombies. Turns out I bought one of the last GD130’s. George discontinued them.

What other pedals are in your chain?
I have a Barber Limited Silver overdrive. It’s a clean boost. You get more gain and distortion out of the amp with it. I use it a bunch on the new record. I also have an Electro Harmonix Holy Grail reverb, and a Dunlop 535Q Wah.

What amp do you use?
A Fender Super Six. I borrowed Isaac Brock’s when we recorded Love and Distance and fell in love with it. It’s a gigantic six speaker version of the twin. 100 Watt. I play in stereo and the second amp I use is a Soursound custom. It’s a 50 Watt high headroom amp that’s good for the low frequencies. Brian Sours makes them here in Portland. He’s great. He also built an amp for Isaac and the guys in the Shins. We use him for all our modifications, he’s a technical master.

Any secrets to your sound?
Not really. I also play through a DigiTech Valve FX processor. I’ve used it on so many songs, I can’t get rid of it. It’s just a tone thing, a digital processor. It has sounds I can’t get anywhere else.

What type of problems do you run into with your set up?
Well, with so many pedals, I’m not getting the purest sound out of the guitar. There’s impedance issues and it messes with the tone. When recording I try to use as few pedals as possible, and only use one amp. I think it’s important to think about the tone.

You guys just played Hawaii. How was it?
It was amazing. We played a Halloween festival at place called the Loft on Honolulu. We were just going to go for three days, but decided to make it into a longer vacation. My wife and my two month old daughter got to come. We rented a car and did a bunch of hikes and had beach time.

How did your daughter do on the plane? What’s in her pedal chain?
It was her first time seeing the ocean and being on a plane. She did really well. People were coming up to us after the flight and saying how good she was. She just has breast milk in her chain. No impedance there.

Is good lactation key for good sound?
Totally. When I’m lactating, I play much better.

(photo: woxy.com)