Premier Guitar September 2016 | Page 90

Thrice’s cofounding guitarist/ frontman Dustin Kensrue wields his Nash JM-63, which has Lollar humbuckers—a High Wind Imperial at the bridge and El Rayo in the neck position. Lots of guys can shred my face off, but to me it seems like you need something more, like passion and creativity.” —Dustin Kensrue DUSTIN KENSRUE’S GEAR GUITARS • Nash JM-63 with Lollar High Wind Imperial Humbucker (bridge) and Lollar El Rayo Humbucker (neck) • Cave and Canary Baritone Solaris • Fender Jaguar Baritone Custom Did you set out to become a genre-bending band, or is that something that happened naturally? Teranishi: No, I think it’s definitely natural. When we first started, our musical tastes were a lot narrower, but we were all listening to metal, punk rock, and hardcore. I think it was just natural for us to want to kind of melt all those things together. Kensrue: It definitely evolved over time, but I think way back in the day we thought there was something interesting about trying to mix some punk rock 88 PREMIER GUITAR SEPTEMBER 2016 and little bits of metal guitar tied together with a hardcore sensibility. It was just a mix of bands we dug at the time, really. We were listening to a lot of new school, West Coast punk. We were listening to East Coast stuff like Minor Threat. And, of course, we were listening to Iron Maiden and bands like that. When you’re creating, you learn by taking different pieces and comping them and putting them into a new context. At a certain point that becomes unconscious—you don’t even think about it anymore. After releasing so much material over the years, how do you avoid slipping into familiar patterns? Teranishi: I think it’s getting harder as our catalog grows. We’re aware of it, but at the AMPS • Fender ’68 Custom Vibrolux • New Vintage Amps Custom “DK36” (MK36 modded by Nic Patullo from New Vintage) EFFECTS • Strymon BigSky Reverberator • Strymon Mobius Multidimensional Modulation • Strymon TimeLine Delay • Electro-Harmonix POG2 • Walrus Iron Horse Distortion • Walrus Deep Six Compressor • Walrus Harvester Overdrive • Mojo Hand FX “Kensrue” Rook Overdrive • S u ule a • JHS Mini Foot Fuzz • Line 6 M5 Stompbox Modeler • TC Electronic PolyTune Mini • Voodoo Lab HEX Loop Switcher (2) • FAMC Liquid Foot+ Mini MIDI controller Photo by Sangsouvanh Ping Khounivichit more leads—like on “Hurricane,” or the super messy solo in “The Window.” I’ve always really loved playing. None of it is really technical or difficult, but I’ve had a lot of fun dialing in my tone this time. premierguitar.com