Groupology
- Amboy Dukes
- Ted Nugent
- Damn Yankees
Jurassic
Watch Ted Nugent in Action at the bottom of this page!
Famous / Infamous for
Famous For: Playing Hard Rock with a hollow-bodied Gibson Byrdland (a guitar usually associated with jazz) - Producing some of the best classic rock riffs in history - Being Aerosmith's eternal support act in the 1970's - Joining forces with wuss rockers Tommy Shaw and Jack Blades in the guise of Damn Yankees.
Infamous For: Hunting - Political views that make Ronald Regan look like a stinkin' Liberal - Guitar duels with anyone foolish enough to agree - Bow Hunting - The Motor City Madman is known for Motor Mouthed crowd banter between songs - Hunting - One of the first players to incorporate controlled feedback into their playing - Hunting with guns - Attempting to buy the Muzak corporation (if he had succeeded Ted claimed he would have killed the company - next time your in an elevator think of Ted's sadly failed mission) - Eating what he kills - Drug and alcohol abstenance — even in the 70s! Ted drinks a carton of chocolate milk before a gig and is carzier sober than most rockers are wasted. The only things Ted was ever addicted to was women and sex. - Did I mention hunting? Ted is the guy to send after Bin Laden. He'd track him down, shoot a flaming arrow through his skull, wear his skin as a loin cloth and sell the rest as packages of Osama jerky in his chain of hunting stores.
Influences
Obvious: Chuck Berry, Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Aerosmith but his biggest influence are the Detroit Wheels.
Ted counts every player that plays guitar and means it as an influence.
Not-so-obvious: Ted has quoted Eddie Van Halen as a big influence. He was into Billy Gibbons for a while too. His current favourite player is Zakk Wylde and often quotes Motown tracks in interviews.
Strengths
Rhythm: Ted is one of the best riff writers you will ever hear. The beauty of his playing is that his ideas are so simple anyone could of wrote them, but Ted did - think of him as the American Tony Iommi in this respect.
Solos: Ted may not have the technical skill of say Yngwie or Van Halen, but his lead playing has attitude, each note sounds like Ted means it and every note will slam you in the gut.
Live Show: Since Ted will not play the UK* I have not been able to catch "The Nuge" in real live action, but his stage show antics include Tarzan impressions and bow and arrow displays. Ted is a madman live and it is quite obviously a strength.
* Quote: "I make $5,000,000+ a year from my hunting trips alone, why would I want to make a couple of hundred dollars playing to an undernourished English crowd?" - gee thanks Ted.
Weaknesses
Consistency: The Nuge has not released a truly decent album since the early 1980's. The mid 80's saw hunting become his number 1 priority and when he did return to rock he somehow managed to get mixed up with a questionable Super Group entitled Damn Yankees (featuring ex Styx and Night Ranger members). Luckily the last 5 years have seen a slight resurgence in Ted's solo work, hopefully he has left Damn Yankees far behind.
His Mouth: Ted is either viewed as a pure gun toting red-neck or he's an under-appreciated messiah for the new millennium - I'll let you decide. Either way he is another artist that always give VFM in interviews.
Tone
Ted's tone has always been one of blood and guts. By this I mean its a very pure unaffected tone that allows a lot nuances and subtleties to shine through. Essentially Ted's signal chain is: Guitar - Cable - Amp. Its a very warm tone, no doubt the result of the big spruce bodied semi-acoustic Gibson Byrdland which is a big, rich and resonant instrument and Ted makes the guitar shine. 'The Nuge' does occasionally use a solid body custom Paul Reed Smith, mainly for its tremolo bar, but to my ears the Byrdland is the Nugent sound.
Ted's amplification preference has varied over the years. The classic 70's period saw him using a combination of Fender Combo's running on the verge of meltdown though 4x12" cabs. These days Ted uses a Peavey 5150 head into 5150 4x12"cabs almost exclusively. Live he runs two heads separated by a small delay from a stereo chorus pedal. Ted's modern day sound is more fuzzy than his cleaner purer 70's tone. It is reported that he never runs the 5150's master volume past 2!! This is in stark contrast to the blistering volume Ted played at during the 1970's. His one time sound engineer Bob 'Nitebob' Czaykowski said that he was the loudest player he had ever heard on a par with Aerosmith's Joe Perry, Ted's sound was "Loud enough to rearrange your chromosomes".
What I like best about Ted's sound is his ability to create a wide number of different tones out of a very simple rig. The number of sounds Ted can create on the bridge pickup alone is impressive, from biting Chuck Berry esque wails, to pummeling rhythm sounds and he can attain a big fat lead tone by rolling the tone control back. Ted mainly uses the bridge pickup when playing rhythm, but his Motown type groove on Free For All saw a mix of bridge and neck pickups. His famous solo on The Amboy Dukes track Journey To The Center Of Your Mind was the neck pickup with the tone rolled back (ala Eric Clapton's woman tone). My favourite sound is the hell bent screaming wild coyote ride tone that is heard on classics such as Cat Scratch Fever and Scream Dream, this tone is very bright but has a lot of bite to it, it is essentially Ted's wild side coming through.
Guitar Style
Ted's rhythm style is rooted in R'n'B and Honky Tonk, essentially he tends to stick to I, IV, V progressions, of course it does not always sound like classic 'rhythm and blues' because Ted has upped the wattage and the intensity but if you listen closely it has that feel. The Nuge's playing has a lot of sex in it, the riffs have that spank that makes you go alright!! Ted's riffs put a smile on your face because they are so simple yet so effective. If you you're not convinced, go out NOW and buy a copy of Scream Dream, the double whammy opening punch of Wango Tango followed by the title track will tell you everything you need to know.
Ted uses a lot of palm muting in his rhythm work. It aids dynamics to a riff, listen to Cat Scratch Fever, its not so much the chords that make that riff, but the way Ted plays it. Muting certain notes to make the un-muted ones kick you in the ass a little harder. Stranglehold would be nowhere without right hand palm muting by the bridge, not many people can pull that riff off - why? They do not palm mute it.
Another tradmark is behind-the-(Trapezoid)-bridge string bending. The Gibson Byrdland has such a long string length between the stop talepiece and bridge Ted can get outrageous sounds by pressing on the strings back there. Ted's favourite use of this effects is the pick an open low E string and then push down on the string behind the bridge bending the note up to G, this coupled with feedback creates a truly wild sound.
Ted's lead style is rooted firmly in Pentatonic and Blues scales. His style is essentially classic 70's US rock approach but Ted injects his own personality into it with such trademarks effects as over-bends (what the name implies), feedback (Ted gets what he calls a 'Rhino Wail') and pinch harmonics. Ted also a pseudo slide technique, basically he uses his fingers to employ a slide sound and its pretty convincing, Ted likes to use this technique in his rhythm playing too.
Ted's not a master picker like Yngwie, but he knows how to get dynamics out of that little piece of plastic (Ted uses a .52mm pick) and this adds to his signature sound.
Vibrato: Ted has a few vibratos that he likes to use often within the same song. His favourite is a fast, short pitched vibrato that blends in well with his fast pentatonic runs, its a vibrato full of life and energy. His second most favourite is a slow wide vibrato, not quite as sweet as John Sykes' but close. Finally he has a medium tempo vibrato which he pulls out of the bag often when he letting a note feedback.
Ted Nugent in Action
Recommended Listening
Ted Nugent
Profile by Andy Craven. Copyright ©2002 All rights reserved.