In 1994, a British band called the Hoax released a moderately successful album called Sound Like This. For me, the album’s main selling point—and the reason I played it over and over again back in the day—is that the band’s guitarists, Jesse Davey and Jon Amor, seriously nailed the late Stevie Ray Vaughan’s style and tone.
And, yes, I know that was “a thing” in the early to mid-Nineties (Hey, I did it too), but Davey—in particular—took it to mesmerizing new heights.
As Amor told The Guitar Magazine in 2015, “Stevie Ray was our hero…to an unhealthy extent. Anything he did, we decided we were going to do as well.” This meant the whole SRV deal, from guitar choices (Strats, obviously) to the thickest strings their fingers could deal with.
In fact, let’s all take a moment so you can see/hear what I’m talking about:
1. Check out the solo from “Scaramouche”
2. Watch Jesse Davey in action in 1998
3. Watch Jesse once more—then I’ll leave you alone.
Anyway, Davey has stayed busy since those ancient times. Besides periodically touring and recording with the Hoax (voted Britain’s best blues band for five years and inducted into the British Blues Hall of Fame), the Davey Brothers and other blues-centric projects, his impressive playing and/or writing can be heard on several feature-film soundtracks and releases by Mick Jagger, Ringo Starr and Dave Stewart.
At some point, Davey—who always enjoyed tinkering with his gear—launched King Tone Guitar, through which he sells his very own hand-made effect pedals, Strat pickups and a little something called the King Tone Switch.
“The King Tone Switch basically makes a single-coil [pickup] sound a bit more like a humbucker as you roll it back,” Davey told The Guitar Magazine. “[It offers] a slightly deeper tone but still with the edge. There’s a sort of tubey feel to it; I use it all the time. The first one was built into a guitar pedal, but it made more sense to have it on a guitar. It’s a fairly basic passive circuit. I do sell them, and a lot of people say they leave it on all the time because when you turn it off it sounds really thin.”
Here are some handy King Tone Switch factoids, followed by two more demo videos (the bottom clip is from the King Tone Switch website, so we assume Davey is using the switch in the video). By the way, you can expect a video from me soon-ish.
• Fits inside your guitar
• Four tone positions
• True bypass, so it won’t affect your normal tone
• Replaces the often-unused lower tone control
• Opens up a wide range of tones
• 100 percent passive, so you don’t need a battery
• Fully encapsulated to protect against moisture
• Easy to install
• $99.99 plus shipping from California.
On the King Tone Switch webpage, Davey adds the following comments: “One hundred percent Vaughan, tubey bite, lots of attack, warm—extremely fat and thick but still has top-end bite.” Again, check out the videos below and form your own opinions.
For more information, visit kingtoneguitar.com. For more about the Hoax and Davey, check out the rest of that 2015 interview.
