The Current's Guitar Collection: Lindsey Troy, Deap Vally, Fender Mustang
by Luke Taylor
April 12, 2017
On their first visit to The Current, Deap Vally turned in a rocking in-studio session, hosted by Brian Oake. Following the session, Deap Vally's Lindsey Troy took some time to tell us about the guitar she plays.
It looks like you might have been playing a Fender Stratocaster … is that correct?
That is not correct! I'm playing a Fender Mustang.
Cool! Where did you get it?
I got it from my dad. It's an early '70s Mustang, and my dad bought it from his friend, Rick, like, 15 or 20 years ago. I don't know the history of it before Rick owned it, but it's a great guitar. It's super old. It has a lot of character. It has some really bizarre modifications that were done before I got it. I love it.
How long have you been using it?
I really started actively using it with Deap Vally, and we've been a band for six and a half years. I remember playing it once, like 12 years ago, at a show I was doing solo, but I really didn't start using it heavily until Deap Vally.
When Deap Vally got going, did you think, "Oh, this guitar my dad has would sound great!" Or did you start using it for another reason?
Basically, I needed an electric guitar for the band, and that was one I had access to that would be free, so that's what I grabbed. It's cool, because I don't think it would have been the guitar I would have picked if I had bought a guitar, but it ended up being so perfect for our band and really defining our sound.
You said you were going for an electric guitar for Deap Vally, which raises the question, do you initially write your songs on an acoustic guitar, or do you write on the Mustang?
I write on the electric, for sure.
Part of your sound is the use of a lot of effects. Which are some of your favorites?
I like fuzz, I use that a lot, and the octave and delay. Those are probably the ones I use the most.
In your in-studio session, you guys played your song "Heart Is an Animal," which has a kind of dirty-blues feel to it. Who are some of your writing and guitar-playing influences?
Well, that song specifically, we wrote out in the desert. We were recording at this really amazing studio called Sonic Ranch, which is right on the border of Mexico, but it's in Texas, outside of El Paso. It has a real deserty feel, and it's on the largest pecan orchard in America. So that song I think was very influenced by that — it really has this really deserty, spooky, eerie, bluesy vibe to it. I feel like that one was also a bit PJ Harvey influenced, with a bit of stoner rock thrown in there. So that one specifically was in that genre.
But my influences are all over the place. Obviously a lot of rock influences; modern stuff like Queens of the Stone Age, and older classic rock like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. And all kinds of other stuff like Marvin Gaye and Nina Simone. The '90s stuff influences us also, like PJ Harvey and Nirvana. It's all over the place.
You can hear that all coming together in Deap Vally. Before we wrap, is there anything else to share about the guitar?
It's a cool guitar. I love it. I played it on every song on each of our records, except for one — when we were out at Sonic Ranch, we wrote another song called "Turn It Off," and I used the guitar that was in the studio.
It is fun to play different guitars because it influences the writing, so I think I'd probably in the future explore around with different guitars, but I'm so comfortable with that Mustang, and I always play it live. It's awesome.
Resources
Deap Vally - official site
