Michael Stearns – Grapevine
Michael Stearns from the band Until Your Heart Stops contacted me about making him an Grapevine overdrive. "Go ahead and surprise me with a graphic," he said.
This was an exciting proposition for me.
I kicked around a bunch of different ideas, but I was coming up dry. I started reading about Michael's hometown of Concord, California, and I found out about the Sunvalley Mall plane crash, which happened in 1985. Two days before Christmas a twin-engine plane missed its approach for the nearby airport and crashed into the shopping mall, then full of last-minute Christmas shoppers, killing six people and injuring 84 people.
It occurred to me that this is the dirty little secret of Concord. I found some images of the crash and used them to create the artwork.
I painted the pedal in Lime Ice, one of my favorite paints, and then I applied water slide decals over the paint. I then used several coats of polyurethane sealer. Finally, I put some carnauba wax on it to give it that deep body shine. I went with white knobs and used a clear/green LED.
The circuitry is from the "grapevine" project over at Madbean
Stearns is also a DIY builder. He plays through a Marshall Plexi clone that he built from a kit made by Metroamp. I haven't built an amp yet, but it sounds like a really fun project. It's a perfect example of building something better than what you can buy in a store for cheaper than you could buy it.
Now go listen to Until Your Heart Stops and pick up the free demo HERE. Check out their blog HERE.
