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“The parts were heavy – but I wanted them heavier”: Mick Mars used a seven-string guitar for the first time on his new solo album
Hear Mars’ seven-string chops on The Other Side of Mars’ eighth track, Undone.
Image: Neil Lupin / Getty Images
Ex-Mötley Crüe guitarist Mick Mars has opened up about some of the gear featured on his new solo album The Other Side of Mars.
Speaking to Ultimate Guitar about what went into the new record’s sound, Mars says: “Well, I still use my Strats, my main ones that I used on stage. Well, the main three that I used on stage. There’s also an Ibanez seven-string that Steve Vai had given me. Oh lordy – I suppose it was back in the mid ’90s or late ’90s… Somewhere around there.”
“And I used that on Undone. Because the parts that were on it were heavy, but I wanted them heavier. So I added that seven-string onto the track. It’s just one of those things where it needed to be thicker.”
“And yeah, it was mostly those same amplifiers,” he says. “I used pretty much the same. I mean, I threw a Hiwatt in there, a Rivera, a Soldano, of course, Marshalls, of course, even a Magnatone. I have a ’63 Magnatone. I’ve just got a little three-watt little amp and I used it on Right Side of Wrong. That beginning chord and the ending chord is through a Magnatone.”
Mars adds that it’s the “first time” he’s using the seven-string, “but now I bought one of those Ernie Ball [John] Petrucci models and that sounds really good. So you’ll be hearing that on the next record.”
Also in the interview, Mars notes how the tracks Killing Breed and Undone are indicative of the direction his music is headed.
“Those two songs are more in the area that I slowly want to move,” he says. “I mean, it’s a pretty diverse album. I know that fans from the Motley days kind of expected either to hear a blues record or something closely relating to the last band that I was in, right?”
“But I’m trying to move into another direction, but slowly, step by step. And I’m working on a second album now because that one took so long. You know, I’ve got four really solid ideas, and it’s hopefully going to come out faster than waiting two years for this one.”