THE LEADS ARE WEAK: JOB FOR A COWBOY’S TONY SANNICANDRO IMPARTS GUITAR WISDOM TO THE MASSES

Photo credit: Tom Couture photography

Hello! Welcome to my first ever column on Metal Sucks! It’s pretty damn cool to be a part of this site and to be able to impart some of my guitar and tour knowledge to all of the readers. A lot of you probably don’t even know who the hell I am, so let me introduce myself: my name is Tony Sannicandro and I play guitar in Job for a Cowboy. I’m 22 years old and have been playing guitar for 10 years. I’ve been a huge guitar fan my entire life and it’s beyond a dream to get to play all over the globe.

Enough “getting’ to know you” shit; let’s go over what’s going to be happening in these columns. I’m going to be talking about some guitar techniques and ideas pertaining to developing interesting playing, going over some gear stuff, talking about shit that happens on tour, guitar players you should check out, and basically whatever the fuck else that’s somehow related to guitar. You can also email me at tony[at]metalsucks.net with any ideas you have and I can address them in future columns. I know a lot of you tough guy interwebs warriors will love that! You guys and gals know how this works — get at me!

For this introductory edition, I’m going to give a quick breakdown of the gear I (ab)use:

As hack as it is to say, I’m a firm believer that most of the sound is in your hands. It’s cliche at this point, but it’s true. The reason I love the instrument so much is because in order to play it you have to physically touch the strings, and that makes it completely unique to the individual. That said, gear is a huge chunk of how you sound, pun not intended (chunk chunk chunk). The only thing worse than a band that doesn’t have their shit together is a band that doesn’t have their shit together AND they are doing it with shoddy gear. Good gear doesn’t have to be expensive — although it sometimes is — but you need to know how to tailor your sound to your band and to the rooms you’re playing.

I exclusively play Ibanez guitars. I’m currently using an RG as my main weapon with a Tone Zone in the bridge. I run an Ibanez Tubescreamer for just a little bit of grit and it tightens up the low end a bit which pleases me. I run that shit into an ISP Decimator pedal, then the good ol’ TU-3 from Boss. I use a Sennheiser wireless. That’s it for the front.

For effects, I’m currently just using a Boss DD-6 in my FX loop, although I might switch that up soon. For amps and cabs I use EVH 5150 III heads and the matching cab. That’s it for right now. I like to experiment and swap out effects every once in a while but this is my main rig for the next tour. Simple as shit.

I’m currently sipping tea in the sky on the way to the U.K. to play some shows with this little band… uh… Cannibal Corpse? I hear they’re pretty cool. As far as traveling goes, lemme impart a few crumbs of knowledge: ALWAYS have a back-up amp. So many times when you rent gear things can get spotty with power or whatever and there’s nothing worse than being overseas without a backup plan. Also — invest in power transformers! These babies keep your pedals and amps and all your goodies and shit from exploding and fryin’ on your ass. I’ve fried a few power supplies because I’m a moron. Don’t let it happen to you!

-TS