GW: You are currently working with Stevie Ray Vaughan’s tech, Rene Martinez. What’s his best Stevie Ray story?
JM: You’d have to ask him, because I would feel like I was betraying his confidence. But here’s something: We played a gig at Webster Hall in New York in 2004, and that was the first time Rene ever came out to tech one of my shows. That night at soundcheck, the speaker in my Fender Vibratone blew. Rene told me that Stevie had played at Webster Hall years ago and that the speaker in his Vibratone had also blown. So I think that was Rene’s sort of first notion that, you know, “Maybe I can work with this guy.”
I think I really understand the Stevie Ray Vaughan tone more than most people because of being with Rene. I think it’s the most misunderstood tone around. Everybody thinks you get a Tube Screamer and you turn the distortion all the way up, and you turn the level as loud as it goes before you get yelled at. But his sound wasn’t about gain—the gain was in his hands. It was in the muscular, atom-bomb left hand, which made it sound loud. It was loud, but it wasn’t distorted. And when people try and play “Texas Flood” through distortion, it sounds awful. Stevie primarily used the amp’s volume and a distortion pedal as a boost, and then he just whipped the hell out of the strings to get that sound.