The Business of Booming

My first guitar amp was a solid-state Peavey bought brand-new from
the big music store next to the mall. For the
non–guitar
players out there, that’s like if your first car was a Toyota Tercel.
It was a piece of shit, and I could never quite dial in a good tone on
the damn thing. Technique and knob-twiddling is only part of the
equation. At some point you can’t polish a turd. And that Peavey was a
particularly stinky turd.

Ben Verellen knows a thing or two about milking a good sound from an
amp. In the late ’90s, he cut his teeth playing bass with tragically
underrated Tacoma riff barons Harkonen, a band that grew from a noisy
hardcore act to a throbbing and stomping monolith. Their evolution in
style coincided with Verellen’s rotating through a series of basses,
amplifiers, cabinets, and fuzz pedals in search of a suitably punishing
bass tone.

In 2000, Verellen began working as an audio engineer, recording his
own band and others both in his basement on a small eight-track and in
studios around Tacoma. His sonic pursuits have continued into his new
gig as guitarist for Helms Alee, who employ a variety of amps and
speakers to push the air for their thunderous assault, combining Sonic
Youth’s obtuse chord arrangements with Karp-inspired blown-out sludge
riffs.

With all his hours on the road, in the practice space, and behind
the mixing console, it’s no wonder Verellen is obsessed with
fine-tuning his sounds. Recently, he’s taken his obsession one step
further, or rather one step closer to the source: Instead of looking
for the perfect amp, he decided to learn how to build the damn things
himself.

“I think it was probably a power trip to want to be able to dictate
and realize my own guitar sounds,” admits Verellen. The power trip led
him to enroll in the University of Washington’s electrical engineering
program and persuade a professor to teach a course specifically focused
on tube amplification. A few blown power transformers later, Verellen
had a functioning, though aesthetically unappealing, amplifier.

Of course, it’s one thing to learn how something works and build a
prototype at home, but Verellen didn’t stop there. He teamed up with
friends and carpentry experts Michael Washburn and Mike Erdman and
converted a recently vacated room in his basement into a miniature
amplifier factory. They’ve also converted Verellen’s chassis full of
electrical components into a classic-looking amplifier, rustic yet
sturdy, enclosed in stained wood and branded with the Verellen
logo.

But why go up against all the established amplifier companies? Is
there room for a boutique amp business in a market dominated by Guitar
Center? Granted, there are numerous amp manufacturers operating on a
similarly small scale, but as Verellen sees it, “most boutique amp
builders are marketing to the older blues guys who get off of work at
Microsoft and want to spend all their money on a killer little combo
amp. That’s cool, and there are lots of those out there who make
incredible stuff. What we’re trying to do is to make something that
appeals to people like ourselves—young guys who still play in
touring bands.”

The impetus for the company was a desire to revisit the golden age
of guitar amplifiers and strip away the bullshit of modern models. “Leo
Fender designed the 5F6A Bassman over 50 years ago, and most of the
classics from the ’60s and ’70s are very derivative of that design,”
says Verellen. “The more people have strayed from that, the worse
things have sounded. It was never broke, so they probably shouldn’t
have tried to fix it with all of those IC chips and ‘features.’ But you
know, it’s just a taste thing. I guess somebody out there really needs
a stereophonic flanger/phaser/chorus built into channel 3 of their
quadruple rectifier.”

There is also the issue of availability. Some of the most popular
amps are also the most difficult to track down. The robed
doom-
droners in SUNN O))) revitalized interest in their namesake
amplifiers, but SUNN stopped producing amps in 2002. Tracking down
their newly vintage and highly prized Model T is increasingly
expensive, and like vintage cars, older amps break all the damn
time.

Now, rather than paying for some unseen product on eBay, people can
go to a guy in Wallingford who can basically build the same damn thing,
although he hasn’t taken on the task of building solid-state
models—he prefers vacuum tubes to microprocessor chips.

“What we’re doing is stealing the secrets of those classic designs
[and borrowing] lots of ideas from vintage Marshall JMPs, Fender Twins,
Vox AC30s, Vox AC15s, Hiwatts, Fender Princetons, Fender Showmans,”
says Verellen. “Is this where I get sued?”

I currently own two guitar amps: a cool old Magnatone, which looks
more like a piece of luggage than a piece of electronic equipment, and
a Verellen amp. The Verellen holds up much better. The Magnatone gets
kind of tired after 20 minutes and needs a breather before it can go
full volume again. It’s relegated to being more of a decorative piece
for the apartment than a functional piece of gear. But the Verellen is
a workhorse.

Verellen’s amps are catching on. Akimbo bassist Jon Weisnewski uses
one, as do local popsters the Pharmacy and Kentucky post-punk
noisemakers Young Widows. Models for Converge and Book of Black Earth
are in the works. Weisnewski sums up his custom amp in a few choice
words: “Like a stallion. Burly. Loud. Clear. Punchy. Huge balls.” Hell,
with every amp custom-engineered and built to the client’s specs,
Verellen could probably even build an approximation of that old
polished Peavey turd, not that you’d ever want such a thing.