Universally Speaking
Dave Lee on the Chilis' Stage set-up
"Everyone except Chad uses in-ear monitors. That way thay can all hear a perfect mix and I have them too. My mix is the same as John's so I can hear exactly what he's hearing and if anything sounds strange I can fix it quicker. I remember at Woodstock, before we had the in-ear monitoring he doesn't realise how loud it is. When we started doing festivals and stuff he wanted to walk out front and to the side and he was on a long cable. If it had been any longer we'd have started losing signal, so we went to the Shure wireless system. When John rejoined the band he wasn't jumping all over the place on stage either, but I heard him say one time that he took up dancing and since then he's started going off more on stage, so the wireless system really helps him move. Flea has just recently switched to a wireless system on this tour too and it's working really well for us."
Amplified to Rock
"John uses a Marshall Major 200W amplifier with KT88 tubes and a Silver Jubilee, both stock. The amps are run simultaneously through a BOSS chorus where he goes in mono and it comes out in stereo. So that way whether the chorus is on or not the signal gets split to the two heads. The Silver Jubilee is just a little bit dirty at that volume.
"The Marshall Major heads are so hard to find, we've been able to find three and we met a guy named Mike Hill who used to work at Marshall and he told us that they only made around 100 of these amps from 1969-1973. They're special because at 200W you can have it loud and still be real clean. It's basically like a bass amp. Jon plays so much clean stuff, all of his distortion or overdrive is from his attack on the guitar to the different pedals. If something does go wrong and I have to switch the Marshall head out, then when you put it back you really have to dial in the tone on those things. You can't just mark the numbers on it because the way it's set up with a jumper through the inputs means it has to be exactly riht or it'll be too distorted or not punchy enough. You have to turn it up about four times to find the right spot. I'm used to it now."
Tech Tips
1) "I use batteries on a lot of the pedals because they run quieter that way. I test the batteries every day and throw 'em out if there's less than 9.1 volts. I try not to throw out perfectly good batteries because it's bad for the environment. Batteries start at 9.5-9.6 Volts. The MXR micro amps uses hardly any battery at all."
2) "The whole rig is wired with Monster Cables. They sound good and last well."
3) "I lubricate the nuts and vibratos on both the Strats with a product called Guitar Grease. It's kinda like a wax. I used to use Teflon but this Grease stuff is better. John uses the Tremlo a lot. If I didn't use this stuff John would go through his nuts in no time."
Pick N'Mix
"For picks John uses Jim Dunlop .60mm. They're the orange ones. There's a funny story attached to these picks. The guy that makes them was asking if John wanted a personalised one and John felt kind of funny about that, kind of like it was a little too rockstar-ish, y'know? So when we were in South America we were in an airport and this kid freaked out about the band and then he looked at me and said, You are Dave Lee, guy of John. The story got back to the pick maker guy and he had some picks made up with that on."
---Phil Ascoot
