The Sound of True Widow (Interview with Dan Phillips)

In 2015 the three-piece True Widow from Dallas, Texas released their fifth studio album "AVVOLGERE". I grabbed the chance to talk with Dan Phillips about his guitar set up after their hypnotising show in Berlin. It was a very chilly chat and he was so kind to tell us his secret of distortion.

🎸 GEAR by Dan Phillips

💻 TRUE WIDOW ONLINE

💿 BUY THEIR VINYL HERE

👽 FOLLOW ME

📹 CAMERA | Nikon 5100

📷 LENS | Nikon DX AF-S Nikkor 18-55mm 1:3.5-5.6G

🎞️ VIDEO EDITOR | Magix Video Deluxe 2018

📚 ARTICLES & ONLINE COURSES 📚

Do you know Soundfly? It’s an online music education hub that I contribute to regularly, where you can learn more about guitar chords, effect pedals, songwriting, composition, home production, mixing and so much more.

Soundfly also offers super flexible online courses for modern musicians where you can get 15% off your monthly subscription when you mention my name. Just write me an email to berlinshoegazer(at)gmail(dot)com and I'll send you a discount code.
If you want to get 15% on single-courses use this promo code: "SHOEGAZER15"

▶ SHOEGAZY SPOTIFY PLAYLISTS ▶

🎶 LINKS TO MY MUSIC 🎶

📻 YOUR MUSIC ON SPOTIFY 📻

You want your music on Spotify, Youtube Music, Instagram, TikTok, Amazon Music, Google Play and iTunes? I personally use DistroKid to easily upload my music to all the stores.

This way you will not only save money but also support my channel. ❤️

💬 ABOUT ME 💬

I'm Kenneth Estrada, a german singer-songwriter and producer from in Berlin, Germany.
I grew up in the 90s and started making music inspired by grunge and alternative rock in the 00s. Since 2005 I released 7 albums and several singles being in different rock bands and working and diverse solo projects. I love writing songs, recording videos and talking about music. That's why I created this channel. Welcome and have fun browsing through my 🌏!

[mattyann]

Thank you for getting an interview of them! True Widow is one of my favorites and I'm finally about to see them live this coming weekend. 🙂

[saoirsecruise]

Love these guys! They make awesome music, but are also the best people you could ever meet! I partied with them a few times, as they've never played in Ireland, so i make a point to fly to the UK to see them. They really appreciate that!

[indie_music_travels]

I once drove 12 hours from Canada to catch them in Portland and Seattle. I had reached out to them to make sure I could get into the venue in case it was sold out and they were so kind and gracious. I had a couple of song requests for them, described thusly: "I read that you guys play it loose in terms of setlists and such...and quite honestly, every time I listen to you guys I pretty much just queue up the three albums and the EP, so I am ready for anything and I wouldn't do anything so crass as to make a request. That being said, I will tell you about my travels today. There were so many Sunday Drivers around. One of them, in particular, was slower than a Blooden Horse with Four Teeth. I felt like going to him, "Sir, if only you were a Duelist...your slow driving was really making me Wither". As I finally passed him I looked at him with Skull Eyes, kind of like a Creeper (A.K.A Corpse Master)". They played all songs...

[vfromcyberpunk]

Absolutely LOVE how his guitar sounds, i wanna tune mine to create that vibe he plays❤‍🔥❤‍🔥❤‍🔥

[MindfulProgramming]

This band is amazing. Good job getting coverage on them.

[kidpresentable]

Awesome, I fucking love this band so much! So under rated!

[offbeatbarley]

Loved their latest album "AVVOLGERE" Very Good! Surprised this is all he uses for such a massive sound

[ZeyTheDaemon]

Dude has such a great style of playing. I think a lot of it comes down to the tunings he uses, because I know they use a ton of weird ones, but otherwise, setup is pretty raw more or less. I knew he didn't use a lot of effects but didn't expect it to be this minimalist

[spncrgrn]

I'm so happy I saw them play when Dan was still using an actual Echoplex lmao

[latontolog]

Cool interview! Will definitely check out True Widow, they sound interesting.

[wkwqfpo]

Saw them in Denton Texas at the rubber gloves venue probably 7 or 8yrs ago now. Wall of sound from the detuned guitars.

[mjbeezer]

Sounds like Indie Doom Metal. These guys rawk.

[poorboysadventures]

Chase Tone makes a great echoplex pre-amp. I gots one. Love it. Also using an EP-34 echoplex in Universal Audios plugin on an Apollo is super rich to.

[brettpanzer]

awesome vid. have been curious of his tone for a few years. thanks,

[poorboysadventures]

great interview btw. good insight into the magic

[jtninja]

hope you run into cloakroom one day. would really like to know how they get their tone.

[SafeSpaceStudio]

I wonder what the pickups are, wish he said

[drainyoo]

Love this band. Thanks for the video, but it’s not clear to me how he gets the distortion. Is he just overdriving the tubes on the amp?

[ambientmothman]

I liked this video a lot actually, but the title is a bit confusing, since he doesn't really use any distortion pedals? i think maybe you forgot to put "without" before "ANY"?

[lmeza]

he lost a lot of weight and its looking good, congrats man.