Usually when a band has two guitarists, there is a power struggle, wherein one wants to take all the lead breaks, and the other doesn’t want to be relegated to “merely” a rhythm guitarist.
When there are three guitarists, the problem gets worse, ‘cos often there are two guitars doing much the same thing, so then it becomes a passive-agressive battle in slightly nudging amp volumes up in order to have the most prominent (read: loud) guitar sound.
Melbourne Drone Orchestra, as perhaps evidenced by their name, have at times featured as many as eighteen guitarists – that’s 17 more than Nirvana, and 18 more than Ben Folds Five. Their goal is to push the sonic limits of electric guitar playing, and while you’d be mistaken for imagining this as walking into the worst guitar store ever, with endless noodling, riffing and wankery battling for attention, the three solid rules of the band make it clear this isn’t the case.
- All guitars are tuned to DADGAD (an open tuning which makes sustained, droney (read: Eastern) sounding chords
- All guitars are six-strings (no double-necked beasts, no bass guitars)
- No shredding.
Thank Christ for that final rule. If you missed them playing at Melbourne’s MEMO Music Hall this weekend gone, you can get some sort of an idea of what the band sound like below. Think God sneezing in slow motion while planes roar on the tarmac.
