Exactly 11 years ago, Miles Zuniga was jetting off to Amsterdam with his Austin-based alt-rock outfit Fastball to try to put some touring muscle behind its latest release, The Harsh Light Of Day. Expectations were high, given the surprising mainstream success of 1998’s All The Pain Money Can Buy, which the band milked for almost two years. Fast-forward to today, and Zuniga has humbler aspirations for his first solo effort, These Ghosts Have Bones (33 1/3), a wrenchingly personal, fitfully melodic ode to the breakup of his 10-year marriage. Though Fastball is still very much a working entity, Ghosts’ quirky centerpiece, “Marfa Moonlight,” would’ve undoubtedly been a much different animal with bandmates Tony Scalzo and Joey Shuffield involved. The same goes for the rest of this inward-looking song cycle. Zuniga will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new Q&A with him.
Zuniga: I like guitars to sound fat and warm and a little distorted. If at all possible, I want that sound coming directly from the amplifier with no pedal in between. Fender amps in general, and the Fender Tweed Bassman specifically, deliver the goods. Jesus, this is sounding like an endorsement you’d see in some guitar magazine with Joe Satriani on the cover, but seriously, I love the Fender Bassman. It’s clean and loud and good. As the tubes start to go, it gets dirtier and dirtier. I like that aspect of it as well.
Video after the jump.
