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Let’s talk about gear.
KL: Well, like many guitarists, I have quite a broad collection. In the early days, I played a 69 Gibson Les Paul Deluxe. I literally wore that guitar out. At that time we were starving artists, so I didn’t even have a backup in case of a string break. That was it. I played that thing for years. A strange irony happened when Kansas finally took off. When you’re a struggling musician without money to buy guitars, you might have one good one. Suddenly, when you start making money they give them to you. We began to get into the endorsement thing. During the ‘70s and the Kansas heyday we were endorsed by Gibson. I was the first ever to be endorsed by Dean Guitars. I met Dean at one of the NAMM shows and tried one of his instruments. I’m an endorser of Dean’s to this day. They make fantastic instruments in his USA custom shop.
I also got hooked up with another small American guitar company, named Zion, out of North Carolina. I play a couple of their instruments.
I found myself playing a Gibson ES-335 during the Kansas years. In the early days I never played a hollow body guitar. But I picked up one in Chicago on a trade that somebody brought backstage. I had one of those magical 335s that didn’t feedback. It just sings, and I’ve never been able to get completely away from that hollow body electric sound. It’s just a fantastic thing.
All these years of being an artist I was never really a Strat player. But it calls for so many different tones, that I’ve started playing Stratocaster-type guitars. I’ve got a couple of Fenders and I have a G&L. I have a new guitar that I’ve only recently procured, a Pearlcaster, by Ed Roman. I’ve started intermingling that with my 335s, Zions, and Deans. I’ve got a whole arsenal going.
Are your Fender Strats new ones?
KL: Yeah, they’re pretty recent. I’ve got a USA Deluxe, which has the S1 switching with humbuckers, where I can get either a humbucking or a traditional Fender single coil sound. That’s a pretty neat option. My Zion guitars have the same option.
In your opinion, how do the different brands of Strat-type guitars compare?
KL: I’ve found that whether it’s G&L or Fender, or custom built by someone else, for me anyway, there’s that endless search for the perfect Strat. There are many variations. You may find one that plays perfect but has some quirk about its sound. But I think, at this point in time, I’ve really arrived at a group of them that I like to play very much. I trade off between them. I’ve got one Fender USA Hardtail, without the Wilkinson tremolo, which gives me a little more stability tuning wise. It’s gotten down to what mood I’m in, or, "I think I’ll play this one tonight," you know.
Which G&L is it?
KL: The G&L Comanche, with the Z pickups. You don’t have any hum or buzz problems. I’ve found I like them quite a bit. I tend to use them more in the studio than on the road.
What about amps?
KL: Let me start with historically. All throughout the Kansas years, basically, it was one 100watt Marshall head and one slant cabinet. I went straight into the amp, no pedals and no modification of any kind. Rich Williams and I were both kind of purists, I guess. It was amazing the range of tones you can get just doing that. Presently, I’m using an amplifier called a Jones. It’s custom built, point-to-point hand wired, all tube circuitry, and actually made here in Kansas. He was after me for quite awhile to play one of his amps. I finally tried one and found that it was everything I was looking for. He asked me, "Kerry, what would be your dream amp?" I said, "Well, an all tube, hand wired head that has a 100watt Marshall and a Fender Twin inside." It would literally be two amps in one box. He said he could do that. So he built it, and I use an A-B switch to go between the two sounds.
I’ve got a pretty extensive pedal board now, mainly because of the diversity of the music with Proto-Kaw. I’ve got an H2O pedal, for echo and chorus. I use a Route 66 pedal for compression and overdrive. If I’m playing a real Strat type sound, maybe with a little chorus on it, you kick the compressor in and it just smoothes it right out, making it sound really silky. I’ve got a couple of different echo pedals. This is kind of my secret weapon. I don’t want to talk too much about it because everybody else will start doing it. I’ve got a pedal called a BackTalk that plays backwards. It’s almost become kind of a signature thing for me in Proto-Kaw. It’s a real interesting pedal because you have to think through what you’re playing, with the idea in mind that it’ll be coming out backwards.
I use Firewire strings; I endorse them. Not many people have heard of these yet. They’re made in Canada. The metal in the strings is processed with some type of secret formula. I don’t know what it is. They told me that if we told you we’d have to kill you. [Laughing] The thing is, they last an extraordinarily long time, the sound stays fresh, and I have never broken one. I go crazy stretching strings. I stretch them clear off the fretboard. They also stay in tune extremely well. I’m pretty enthusiastic about them.
Do you get into alternate tunings at all?
KL: On acoustic I do. I use the old DADGAD tuning. I’ve found that if I detune a guitar to that tuning and start playing, it just generates songs. There was a song on the Kansas album, ‘Somewhere To Elsewhere’, called ‘Byzantium’. That song came into being just as a result of fooling around with the DADGAD tuning. You can play all sorts of chords and positions that wouldn’t make sense in regular tuning and end up doing new things with it.
