On The Record: Eric Gales on his Magneto Strat and playing 'upside down'

Eric Gales discusses his love for acoustic guitar and his upcoming projects. He mentions that he has been promoting his album "Crown" but has new material in the works. He also reveals that he has recorded an acoustic record during the pandemic. Eric talks about his signature Magneto guitar and how it differs from a regular Stratocaster. He praises the company and expresses his satisfaction with their guitars. He mentions that his stage guitars require minimal modifications and are set up to his liking. Eric also discusses his unique left-handed playing style, which he attributes to watching his older brothers play. It's something really intimate about acoustic, man, and, you know, freeing for some reason, even though the acoustic, playing an acoustic oftentimes is very unforgiving. But it's something about just the intimacy of Jake, you know, and the beautiful aspect of just acoustic guitar is, it touches me, man. I mean, playing electric does too, but just something about acoustic just really gives it to me. Hey everybody, this is Eric Gales and you're listening to On The Record with Ultimate Guitar. So last time I talked to you, it's been almost two years, was for Crown. Do you have anything, any sort of new material in the works? I got some things that's kind of dancing around. I hadn't, you know, got to, you know, anything studio-wise yet because, you know, since Crown came out, we've been, I've been devoting most of my time, you know, out here, you know, promoting it and trying to ensure that as many people as possible can get a chance to be exposed to it and listen at it and, you know, just be pretty diligent about, you know, pushing Crown. But, you know, I feel my fingers itching. So something is, something is going to be in the works here pretty soon. I think you told me at one point that you prefer playing acoustically. Is there a possibility that there's an acoustic out in the works? I actually got an acoustic record during the pandemic. It was, you know, a lot of idle time was on, I think, everyone's hands. And I got one kind of sitting on a shelf for a minute. I'm just, you know, picking and choosing the right time to strike with it. I got to go back and listen to it and, you know, regather my thoughts about it again. But yeah, acoustic, man, it's just, it's something really intimate about acoustic, man. And, and, you know, freeing for some reason, even though the acoustic, playing an acoustic, oftentimes very unforgiving. But it's something about just the intimacy of just, you know, and the beautiful aspect of just acoustic guitar is, it touches me, man. I mean, playing electric does too, but just something about acoustic is just really beautiful. Is that where you started out? Did you start out on acoustic guitar? You seem so natural and comfortable when you're playing acoustically. No, I just started out on electric, man. Started on electric, man, and found myself, you know, saying, hey, what's that thing? And, you know, say, yeah, you got to take strings on it and let's see what we can do. And the journey began from there. So being out on the road, are you still playing all your signature stuff, your signature amp, your signature guitar? You got a signature pedal, which I love, by the way. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, I'm still, still using my 11, man. It all still works. So it is definitely, it's in the arsenal, for sure. How'd you get hooked up with Maestro? And in designing that signature guitar, there's a lot of little tweaks on a Stratocaster design. What were some of the flaws that you hoped to correct with your Maestro signature guitar? It wasn't a vision, per se, of things that I saw that really bothered me about a Strat, you know, as per se making something be, you know, a little different than what a Strat is to not be mimicking exactly what a Strat is. Yeah, I grew up playing Strat-configurated guitars, you know, predominantly in the Strat style, more or less, let me use that term, Strat style, three single, you know, three single coil pickups and, you know, but definitely been exposed to, you know, you get into your SGs and your Flying Ds and 335s and Telecasters and other different styles. It was just that, you know, throughout the years, there's been a lot of different signature instruments that have come about that if there is going to be the talk of a signature instrument, it has to be something that's different from what everybody else has done. And for me, one of those things is that Magneto was a company that, through all of the ups and downs in my personal life, Magneto had been there. There's other companies that have as well, but Magneto was one of the ones that, you know, I really liked how, you know, the neck feel and it's just one of those guitars that you could play all day. Not that a Strat isn't, but there is a little difference in the way the neck feels to me of, you know, my signature Magneto that is not so rounded as a Stratocaster style neck, but, you know, more of a flat radius across. I sat down and began to play and before I knew it, it was, you know, six, seven hours later and I'm still toying around on the thing and I'm like, yo man, I like this a whole lot. And so me and Christian, the president of Magneto Guitars, we were friends and the guy and Christian were just so down to earth, man. And, you know, he said, I want to be able to put something in your hands that, you know, that you feel like you can play, you know, all day. And that's exactly what happened, man. And we just went from there and it's hard to go out. Although I have an arsenal of quite a few guitars that I have, it's hard for me to go out without at least one of them being the Magneto. And, of course, it's also tied into because, you know, I have, you know, this situation going on now where I take them out on the road and I have them for sale out on tour and they're selling, I can't keep them enough people, you know, at least two or three are bought at every show. And it's really, really, really, really nice. I mean, it's a really good feeling that, you know, people, you know, want to. And that's my first time ever doing something like that out of my career, you know, as far as, you know, a signature guitar, you know, and then that made me develop that idea with the pedal and the Remark amp head. And, you know, hey man, people are out there just itching to buy stuff, believe it or not. And I just found this out this late in the game. I would have, you know, maybe capitalized on this much, much sooner in life and in my career. But taking a good old page out of my friend Joe Bottomoff's book, you know, hey, if they see you with it and you have them for sale, somebody's going to buy it. But I have just, I like this, you know, first of all, you know, again, I'm really speaking more of the, you know, personal friendship that me and the owner have had. And he just so happened to me a guitar that, you know, feels like butter to me. And I hope every single person that winds up acquiring one of these guitars feel just as comfortable as I do with it. And yeah, I could talk all day about, you know, the relationship that me and the company has. And then they, I mean, I'm not playing them just because, you know, of monetarial gain or whatever, but I really like how they sound. They sound great to me. There's nothing that I'm limited at and I can do anything I want with them. So that's pretty cool too. Yeah, they sound great to me too. That's the sound you're hearing on Crown, right? That's the guitar that you do? Yeah, 95% of the record was done with other songs that, you know, something involving the mechanical on them in one way or another. So when you get your stage guitars, is there anything that you do to them, mod them at all, just to make them fit your playing style? Or, you know, how did those compare to the ones that people are buying at shows? Nothing any different, actually, you know, to say nothing. I mean, it comes off the shelf, you know, actually set up pretty good. I mean, pretty close to how I like my stuff set up. I like really low action, as low as you can get. And, you know, I use 10T40, 10T46 strings and, and, and just, you know, I obviously could take one straight out the box and go and go and go with it and be perfectly fine. But again, to a person that purchases one, you know, of course, you know, I advise you to, you know, take it to your setup person or whatever, because everybody don't like, you know, everybody else's setup or whatever. But to me, you know, I just love low action and, you know, maybe a pickup adjustment here and there, you know, for the taste of how loud or how soft that you like the pickups in comparison to each other, and how they work, you know, connecting with each other, and plug it in and go from there. So it's, there's not much. There's not much man. I mean, the way they come, I don't know if that was because of how me and Chris set out when we were when we were developing a signature model that they are, in my opinion, set up pretty close to how I like them. You know, after assembly line, give or take, you know, you know, a little small dimension here and there. But no, to answer the question in the long way in the short way, no, there's absolutely nothing really that I do. I'm ready to go with it. And you do have a pretty unique playing style where it is a right handed guitar. I was wondering if they offered them right handed, even though yours are technically right handed guitars, set up, but you play them left handed. I'm using everybody if nobody's seen Eric play, they'll look at the video of him playing the guitar. It's incredible. I've tried to do that left handed can't do it. I don't know how it How did you? How did you wind up with that style? You know, ironically, I got two older brothers that play left handed upside down key. And, you know, maybe subconsciously, it was from me watching them. And I picked it up the same way. But I just picked it up and off to the races. But back to the subject of the guitar, the guitar is set up for a right handed person. You know, the one that back to the other question of the one thing that is could be if you would label it a disadvantage as the cutaway on strat is not to my advantage on the other side to get all the way down the neck. But you know, I figured out a way to, you know, get around that even playing strats and things like that. You know, you just you know, there's a way to your you want to learn something to be something bad enough, you'll figure out a way to do it. But that is something that affords me a much easier access all the way down the neck that the way that my signature Magneto is set up, you know, it's the cutaways are even on both sides. So and for me, in my in my model, the dots are on my on the side where I can see them. I've always played guitars where the dots are on the other side of the neck. And, you know, you know, you just know the neck really well or you have to with a little marker or something like that with where you are. So you can see but uh, we joked about it but but it was a real it was a real actually real situation to you know, just in case we're hiring a few left handers out there that actually wind up buying a guitar. There are the dots are to the advantage of a left handed player. Have there been efforts on anybody's part to try to get you to play left hand guitars? Yes, there have been some that have, you know, made I've got a couple of prototype things that are made left handed, but to be played right handed. You know, I don't know if I think they're right, but they have a left handed body, but we're still strong right handed. And the technique. It looks weird to me, though, for some reason, because I'm so used to playing, you know, right handed stuff, just flipping it over and doing it upside down. You know, I mean that even if the knobs and everything was made to the other side, that would feel like pretty, I would feel like that would feel like pretty abnormal to me. So I've gotten used to the abnormality of, you know, playing against the grain. And it feels strange when I'm approached with being able to play with stuff more, I guess, in the favor of a left handed player, if you will. And no, but no one has not necessarily tried to, you know, impose or anything like that. You know, it's, it just works for me with how it's been going. I don't know why, but I think about it, it just seems a little strange to try to play, you know, a left handed body. I mean, they're cool, though. I mean, if you think about it, it's a great, it's a clutch idea to, you know, come up with an Eric Gales model that left handed guitar, but with right handed, you know, configurations and things like that. But I do have a couple of prototype things that that I have around and, and just every time I pick them up, it seems a little strange, because it's, you know, that's, that's not how I grew up playing them. But at the end of the day, give me enough time with it. I mean, I could get myself adjusted to it with, you know, with no problem. But nobody, nobody, you know, came to me with some massive deal, you know, a few million dollars to let's put this, you know, style guitar out or anything like that. Now, I mean, if it was a few million dollars, we might talk about something. And, you know, we'll figure it out. We'll figure out, you know, this left handed body, right handed strung up style guitar. If that's really what you want. And since you're talking a few million, we might can, you know, have a discussion. Well, I don't want to take up too much more of your time. You've been very gracious with your time. But is there anything else you'd like to say to, to those coming to Ultimate Guitar, looking up tablature, trying to learn your song? Hey, man, just stay in it for the stay in it for as long as you can. Keep trying to find that inspiration because it's what gives you the drive to keep going. And just keep doing what you're doing, man. You know, world's a much better place with music in it. And your contribution means something. Well, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. No worries, man. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.