Early on, Zoom developed a love thing for the Gretsch Silver Jet, and the Gretsch sound became the dominant roar of X. This year, the band launched its 13-31 tour to celebrate its 31st anniversary, and Zoom further commemorated the occasion by bringing his brand new Gretsch Billy Zoom Signature Silver Jet on the road.

“It’s wonderful,” he says. “I think Gretsch is planning to debut it at the summer NAMM show, so it’s not for sale yet, but I have one.”

The iconic Zoom/Silver Jet partnership was triggered by a quest for the perfect foil for the punk-pop-R&B-roots-rock style he was evolving for X.

“I had been really inspired by the Ramones, and I initially wanted to do something with power chords,” he explains. “I had a ’58 Stratocaster, which was a great guitar, but I thought the sound was way too thin for power chording. I also had a ’57 Gretsch 6120. It had an amazing tone, but if you played with any volume or distortion it would just go nuts with low-frequency feedback. But then I saw this silver-sparkle Gretsch on the floor at a local guitar store. They wouldn’t even hang it up with the ‘real’ guitars because of the sparkle—in the ’70s, that wasn’t cool—so it was in a pile of the ‘not-quite-real’ guitars from, like, Goya, Danelectro, and other makers. And it was affordable. In those days, a Les Paul was a few hundred bucks, and a Gretsch was under a hundred. I had my eye on that Gretsch Silver Jet for almost a year, and I was looking for an excuse to buy it.”

The sight of Zoom holding that silver-sparkle beauty against a black-leather jacket has been one of the enduring images of X throughout its 31-year history, and he has performed a vast catalog of rogue riffs using just that guitar and a custom amp he built himself. (For a sample of Zoom’s inventive simplicity, check out the November’ 07 issue of GP for a mini lesson on how he plays the propulsive opening lick to X’s “The Hungry Wolf.”) What luck, then, that Zoom looked past the fabulous guitars displayed so prominently on the guitar-store wall to find the jewel in the junk pile.

So how many of those new signature Silver Jets are you taking on the road with you?
Just one. I usually travel with one guitar.

You are very brave.
That’s all I’ve ever done. The new guitar sounds incredible, and I can’t believe it stays in tune so well. I usually don’t even tune it up from one show to the next. On the old Jet, I’d tweak the low-E string a little bit, and the rest of the strings would stay in tune, but this one is even more stable.

Is there anything else about the new Billy Zoom model that surprised you?
Just that they did it right. They’d give me a prototype, and I’d tell them something wasn’t right or how it was supposed to be, and they’d fix it. I still can’t believe that. At first, the guys at the Gretsch Custom Shop didn’t believe just how hollow my Silver Jet was. Only two one-inch squares under the bridge posts actually touch the top. The rest of the raised parts stop about a quarter inch below the top. I know, because I had the guitar X-rayed at Kaiser Medical Center. Oh, yeah—the pickups don’t squeal as much on my signature model. They’re Seymour Duncans, and they sound the same as my original Jet’s pickups, but they’re potted, so they aren’t as microphonic. I mean, you can get the new guitar to squeal if you put it right in front of a cranked amp, but under normal circumstances, it won’t. The old pickups are notoriously microphonic if you play as loud as X does, and, well, it depends on the room. In some rooms, the squealing is annoying, and, in some rooms, it isn’t.

Are you also bringing your self-built amp on the 13-31 tour?
Yeah. I started using it in 1984, and I put in a new set of tubes in 2005. Other than that, I’ve never had to change a part or anything.

What were you going for when you designed the amp?
I was trying to make a really versatile amp that would never break, and it has never broken, so I think I succeeded. I built the amp with the normal Bass, Mid, Treble, and Presence controls, but the actual frequencies are selectable via a row of little switches. I haven’t changed the positions in a long time. I figured out the sound I liked, and I made that the middle setting of all the knobs [laughs]. For example, the treble knob in its straight up position might be equal to 10 on a Fender. There’s also no Volume control, for whatever that’s worth. There’s just a Low/High Power switch on the back, and I haven’t had it on High Power since 1985. I’ve got knobs for Gain, Compression Ratio, Compression Threshold, and stuff, but no actual Volume knob. This would never make a good commercial amplifier because you’d have to go to school and get a license to be able to run it [laughs]. I just made something I liked.

So how has your amp managed to be so indestructible throughout the years?
It’s not something I can put into a simple sentence that non-engineers would understand. I design things so that none of the components are highly stressed. Everything can handle two or three times what they’re getting. It’s real stable, and it’s pretty much the opposite of what everybody thinks they want. It has an ultra-linear output section, for example, which I read on the Internet is not suitable for guitar because it doesn’t want to distort. That’s complete B.S.—a linear output just makes the amp sound louder, and you get better speaker damping.

How do you typically set the controls?
Everything I do with X is always the same amp setting, but I never turn the knobs, so I’ve forgotten what it is. I just plug the guitar into the amp, and control the amount of overdrive with the Jet’s Master Volume knob. Occasionally, I’ll switch pickups. On “My Goodness,” I turn the tone knob all the way down, but I have a really tiny capacitor on the control, so it just takes the real top end off. It sounds more midrangey and a little less zingy, rather than woofy.

When we talked last year, you tossed out an off-the-cuff remark that journalists often “get it wrong” about your style and technique. Would you mind being more specific?
I was having a discussion today over breakfast with our manager about how I’ve never once referred to myself as a rockabilly guitarist, but that description is in almost everything you read about me. When X first started, I was fairly well known in the Los Angeles area for doing rockabilly, and, you know, writers like to have something to latch onto. But I certainly don’t see much rockabilly in X’s music. The chording in X is much more based around jazz and R&B. There are lots of minor 7ths, major 13ths, and a lot of weird chords that most punk guys don’t know, and most rockabilly guys don’t play.

Did that approach develop as you began playing with X?
I had the sound I wanted in my head before I even met John [Doe, X bassist/ vocalist] and we started the band. I wanted to incorporate Curtis Mayfield-style chord inversions with a little bit of Scotty Moore, and play them in such a play that it sounded like the Ramones. For some reason, I thought that would be clever. Getting there, however, meant not using nearly as much distortion as most rock players do. Getting the right guitar was critically important to developing the style, as well. I was originally a horn player, so I always have horn parts in my head, and I typically use a pick and two fingers to get the notes I need. I figured if I could get notes to feedback and sustain, I could be two saxophones and a guitar [laughs]. When I started using the first Silver Jet, I realized I could get that sound. Because the Jet is so hollow, I can get, say, the root and fifth to feedback on two strings while I fingerpick a melody on the other strings.

You’re always this tall, smiling guy onstage—it’s almost like you’re in your own happy little world. I don’t think most people realize all the stuff that goes on in your head and fingers to deliver the Billy Zoom style.

I just don’t draw attention to it. I act like I’m not doing much [laughs]. That’s kind of my little personal joke, because I was making fun of all the rock guys who made the fun faces when they played, but weren’t really doing anything that complicated.

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