Show Us Your Junk! Ep. 30 - Jonathan Pearce (The Beths)
Malcolm X Abram
Welcome back to Show Us Your Junk! In this episode, we travel to the land of the Kiwis for some quality time with guitarist Jonathan Pearce of Auckland New Zealand quartet The Beths. Jonathan takes us on a guided tour of his recording space filled with plenty of junk, including a Thunderbird 50 Fountain Amp head, a rare New Zealand-produced amplifier, and his beloved '78 deluxe Les Paul Gold Top. Though Pearce, who also records other bands at the purposely unnamed studio, has vintage recording gear, he mainly tracks in the digital realm, though he occasionally break out his "old-school dusty Sony recording tape machine." "I do kind of feel more serious when I'm using the tape machine. I think the musicians feel it too. It's like the tape is rolling. OK, it's serious now. Whereas if you're recording on a computer, and I do 99% of my recording on computer, it's like a game. When I want to get serious, I get the tape machine out." Jonathan invites a couple of bandmates for a brief jam in the big room, demonstrating how prefers to record, with all the musicians in the same room. "If I have a theory of recording, it's probably just that I want to keep things flowing and be really sensitive to what the musicians are needing to have a good creative outcome. I'll sacrifice almost anything for that. The most important thing is what the creative person is feeling that moment."
Check out The Beths brand new film The Beths- Auckland New Zealand 2020 out September 17 and be ready for their North American tour which begins in early 2022.
Shot by Sports Team
Edited by David Whited
