The Tone Mob Podcast

Scott Mellinger of Zao returns to The Tone Mob for a long-overdue hang, and apparently age comes for us all in different ways. Some people take up golf. Zao seems to be getting slower, heavier, and sludgier.

Scott digs into Pillars, Zao’s new collection paying tribute to the overlooked bands from their local scene that helped create the blueprint for what they eventually became. That leads into the strange history of early metalcore, bands that arrived a decade too soon, and the peculiar experience of having your very human record temporarily flagged for AI by an AI.

From there, things naturally get weird. Blake horrifies Scott with the darker side of streaming fraud, Scott recounts his pilgrimage to EarthQuaker Day, and the two discuss pedal nerd community, Sweetwater, meeting your musical heroes, and why perfectly normal human beings somehow become twelve feet tall the second they step onto a stage.

There’s also talk of getting older while refusing to leave the mosh pit, the health benefits of heavy metal and occasional cheesecake, Scott’s resurrected side project Lonely Ghost Parade, more Zao cover material, and, most importantly, a brand-new Zao record currently taking shape.

Scott brought a lot to talk about. We managed to talk about guitars occasionally sometimes.

Give Zao a follow on the socials HERE https://www.instagram.com/zaoband

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This week on The Tone Mob, Blake sits down with Frank Gross, founder of Thunder Road Guitars Seattle, for a conversation about music, retail, risk, reinvention, and the strange magic of simply refusing to disappear.

Frank tells the story of leaving the band life behind, moving back to Seattle, and slowly turning Craigslist flips, pawn shop finds, and a tiny workspace into one of the most respected guitar shops on the West Coast. We dig into the early days of Thunder Road, the importance of branding, the realities of bootstrapping a business, and why “just show up and try” might be the most brutally useful advice a new business owner can hear.

We also get into the brand-new Thunder Road Seattle location, building an in-person retail experience in an increasingly online world, the chaos of moving a working guitar store, punk and screamo war stories, favorite Boss pedals, gigantic pizza, and why guitar shops still matter.

Check them out at https://www.thunderroadguitars.com/

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Trevor Boone basically grew up inside a guitar shop.

His dad started Emerald City Guitars in Seattle back in the mid-90s with a shoestring business plan, a small loan, and a whole lot of secondhand guitar-store dream dust. Trevor was the kid at the counter, surrounded by musicians, weird old guitars, shop talk, and the kind of musical obsession that tends to permanently rewire a person.

In this episode, we get into Trevor’s journey from pre-eBay guitar hunts with his dad to becoming one of the people collectors call when they are searching for serious vintage pieces. We talk Bursts, Dumbles, Silvertones, funky under-a-thousand-dollar treasures, and the strange balance of loving the oddball stuff while also surviving in the high-end vintage guitar world.

We also dig into how guitar retail has changed, why proper setup and authentication matter more than ever, the pressure of social media, the magic of instruments that simply make you play better, and why the best guitar shops still feel like the barbershops of the music world.

There is also some Boss DM-2 love, Seattle pizza talk, Garth Brooks, Stringjoy Foxwoods, and the usual amount of beautiful guitar nonsense.

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Yvette Young is back on the podcast, which means we are legally required to talk about beautiful guitar parts, creative chaos, and the strange little circus act of trying to be a functioning artist in the modern world.

This time around, Yvette digs into her work on the new Superman soundtrack, including what it was like getting mysterious NDA phone calls, turning around guitar cues on tight deadlines, and then watching the movie wondering which of her parts survived the final cut instead of, you know, simply enjoying the movie like a normal person.

We also get into the deeper stuff: burnout, touring, trying to make time for solo music, learning to serve someone else’s creative vision, and the eternal struggle of doing enough work to survive without accidentally sanding your soul down to a decorative nub.

There’s also talk of signature gear, musician play dates, creative retreats in the woods, and why music should probably be treated less like a sport and more like a weird, beautiful thing humans do because our brains won’t leave us alone.

Yvette is always a delight, and this one gets wonderfully real.

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Buddy Blues joins The Tone Mob for a long-overdue conversation about guitar, YouTube, blues, pedals, and the strange little internet ecosystem where all of those things collide.

Buddy shares his story, from growing up in Beirut playing classical piano, discovering electric guitar through blues and Pink Floyd, moving to Florida as a teenager, gigging heavily, touring with John Mayall, and eventually finding his way into the world of guitar YouTube after the live music world hit a wall in 2020.

Blake and Buddy dig into the grind of making gear content, the difference between demos and entertainment, learning to stop trying to win everybody over, the weirdness of algorithm life, favorite amps, recording setups, Victory amps, Fender Supersonics, the value of bedroom-player opinions, and why guitar culture sometimes takes itself way too seriously.

They also talk about Buddy’s new LSL Instruments signature Satikoy, Stringjoy strings landing in Guitar Center, the Boss DM-101, proper Neapolitan pizza, and why the blues and death metal apparently share custody of Lebanon’s guitar scene.

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