Scott Henderson continues to blow minds with his ever-evolving guitar mastery. From his early years blending bop and Holdsworth to his magical Jeff Beck-meets-SRV blues-fusion machinations, Henderson brings it all together on Karnevel!. It’s a trippy jazz-rock adventure with loads of guitar, humor, and a killer rhythm section. VG met with Henderson to discuss the highlights.
There’s connective tissue between People Mover and Karnevel!.
For these kinds of records, I pretty much do it a tune at a time. I don’t have a whole-album concept. I’m trying to write something different every time I sit down. I try to make the tunes different from each other. At the end, I have 10 or 11 tunes, and I try to arrange them in some kind of order that makes sense.
How did you approach crafting the sound?
We played a lot of this music for two tours before we went into the studio, and by then it felt very natural. So many things happened to these tunes on the road. What bassist Romain Labaye plays on the album is superior to anything I wrote for him on a chart. It’s not even a contest. Same with the drums – Archie Ligonnière always comes up with killer stuff. After these guys add their personalities, the music sounds quite a bit different than what I originally came up with. That’s why we like to tour; night after night, I come up with cool things I never would have thought up in my room. If I like them, they become part of the tune.
On “Sky Coaster,” Labaye drops out. It’s just you and Ligonnière playing drums. Was that improvised on tour?
That was written as a duet for guitar and drums. We get into these little rhythmic things together, and it’s a lot of fun. It’s more about the rhythms than the notes. There’s no key, and I can play anything I want. As long as it’s rhythmically interesting, that’s what I care about.
You’ve added some cool effects to your arsenal.
There’s a song called “Bilge Rat” – all those weird noises you hear on the left side are coming from the Empress Zoia. I loved that patch so much, and it was such an integral part of the song that I reached out to the guy who wrote that patch and paid him a hundred bucks (laughs). I thought, “This patch is like another musician, and he should be paid!” Guys write these patches and give them away on the internet. I felt like this guy was comping me during the whole song.
What’s the deal with the sitar?
It’s a Jerry Jones Electric Master Sitar – the one I used to record “Manic Carpet” on Vibe Station. I spent more time tuning it than playing it; the intonation is terrible (laughs), but it sounds great on the record. That’s straight into my Fender Bandmaster with no pedals.
How about overdrive pedals?
My main pedal was the RC Booster, but sometimes I’d put a Roger Mayer Voodoo-1 Classic in front of it to get a little more bass and punchiness. Putting a Vodooo-1 before it is an old Mike Landau trick. If you put the Voodoo-1 before a Tube Screamer or RC Booster, it adds big low-end girth. I also use an original Klon Centaur, which is one of my favorites. I also used the L.A. Sound Design Buffer/Boost by Dave Phillips. It doesn’t have quite as much gain as the RC Booster, but it’s really big-sounding.
Which amps are you using?
My 1971 Marshall plexi and a Bandmaster modded by John Suhr; he added a Master Volume to the Marshall. I’m also using Kerry Wright cabinets and IRs of them captured at York Audio, in Nashville. I can’t tell which is the speaker and which is the IR.
You created a horn section with guitars.
“Covid Vaccination” is a tribute to Tower of Power. I love that band. Every horn on that is a different pedal. Rather than play chords like I do live, I tackled it like a horn arrangement. I used a wah half-opened, and a distortion pedal for the trumpet sound, a fuzz for the saxophone, and a Trombetta Rotobone for the trombone. I also tuned way down and used a fuzz tone for a sax part. I took horn-arranging lessons from Tower of Power. I’m pretty happy with the way it came out.
This article originally appeared in VG’s May 2024 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
