FEATURE > BRENT MASON
Brent Mason’s Gear
Guitars
Modified ’ 68 Fender Telecaster, ’ 65 Fender
Stratocaster, ’ 68 Gibson SG, ’ 76 Gibson
ES-335, ’ 73 goldtop Gibson Les Paul,
PRS David Grissom, PRS SE Mike Mushok
Baritone, PRS 12-string acoustic
Amps
’ 67 Fender Deluxe Reverb, ’ 65 Fender Twin
Reverb,’ 65 Fender Bassman, ’ 63 Fender Band-
master, silverface Fender Twin Reverb (modi-
fied to head format), Matchless DC30 driving a
Matchless 2x12 cab, various Little Walter amps
Effects
Wampler Hot Wired Brent Mason Overdrive/
Distortion, Creation Audio Labs MK 4. 23
Clean Boost, Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive, Boss
GE- 7 Graphic Equalizer, Analog Man-modded
Boss TR- 2 Tremolo, Wampler Ego Compres-
sor, Electro-Harmonix Stereo Memory Man
with Hazarai, Visual Sound Visual Volume,
Ernie Ball Volume Pedal Jr., Xotic Effects BB
Preamp, Vox wah, Strymon El Capistan, Line
6 DL4 Delay Modeler, Benado multi-effector,
other effects “in piles in a box somewhere”
Strings, Picks, and Accessories
Herco blue thumbpick, Boss TU- 2 Tuner,
D’Addario straps, George L’s and Planet
Waves cables
Mason in the studio with his ’ 76 ES-335 and a red Matchless DC30 barely visible behind
the music stand.
kind of notation that might be
on a chart is like signature licks,
hook licks, or a written-out
intro. Or, if a bar has syncopated
stops, all of the syncopated 16th-
or eighth-notes might be written
out. But that’s about it, nothing’s
written out from top to bottom.
Nashville’s probably got less
reading than anywhere else,
because we’re so big on the creative aspect of developing a song.
We generally don’t hear the song
or get charts or mp3s until we go
into the studio to work on the
record—that’s the first time we’ll
hear what we’re doing. But on a
big record, you’ll have, like, three
hours to do one or two songs.
I never went to college for music.
But speed is just practice and
the will to make it happen. It’s
like, “George Benson’s burning
this down—I’ve got to do it, too.”
Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
It could be if somebody just got
thrust into it for the first time,
because it moves fast here. But
we’ve had some L.A. transplants
that just blended in nicely and
brought some of their L.A. into
Nashville. And if we go there,
we might sweat blood while try-
ing to read a symphonic chart.
I’d have to really decipher it. You
might have to say, “I have to go
to the bathroom for a minute,”
and take the chart to the bath-
room and study it. I admire guys
like Tommy Tedesco, who could
flip their charts and read it back-
wards [laughs].
Would an L.A. guy who’s
used to reading fully notated
scores have a hard time acclimating to the Nashville scene
and vice versa?
One of the trickiest aspects
for young, non-union musi-
cians trying to break into the
scene is dealing with money.
Because it can be a fairly
secretive and sensitive topic,
a newcomer might not know
what the average rates are and
either ask for too much—and
disqualify themselves—or too
little, which shortchanges them
and lowers the market rate for
peers. What advice do you have
for negotiating rates?
You have to have some kind of
template for that. Here, with
the union, we have several dif-
ferent scales that depend on the
project you’re doing. There’s the
demo scale—where publish-
ing companies demo songs to
pitch—and there’s a set scale
for that. That’s the lowest. Then
you might have some dude
from Iowa, and he’s cutting a
record to sell out of the back of
his truck. That’s what we call
“limited pressing,” when they’re
going to press only a couple
thousand of them—less than
10,000. Above limited pressing
is the “low-budget master” for
established but not big record
labels, like independent labels
with less inventory. Then you
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