One Thing Leads To Another
One Thing Leads To Another
Photographer Eilon Paz talks about the creation of ‘Stompbox,’ a coffee table book for people who love gear
Eilon Paz is a New York-based photographer whose niche is high end, music-oriented coffee table books. In 2014, he released Dust & Grooves, a book that documents some of the world’s greatest—and most eccentric—record collections and collectors. His next, and most recent, offering is Stompbox, which, among other things, is a candid, in-depth look at 100 pedals that belong to 100—some iconic, some just legendary—guitarists. [Full disclosure: I am a contributing writer for Stompbox, which is how I know Eilon, and why I know so much cool stuff about the project.]
Paz spent about six years compiling Stompbox, which, to put it mildly, is a pedal nerd’s most salacious fantasies revealed in full color and in all their uninhibited glory. His forte is vibrant, revelatory, dynamic photography—the images are gorgeous—and, in addition to the roundup of 100 pedals, includes Lee Ranaldo interviewing J Mascis about Big Muffs, a discussion with 13 contemporary builders [ahem], a feature about non-guitar pedal usage, and a lot more.
While hyping Stompbox on social media, Paz was contacted by Josh Scott from JHS Pedals, who turned him onto a number of massive, and sometimes extraordinary, pedal collections. Paz traveled around the world, to cities as disparate as Kansas City, Nashville, Tokyo, Moscow, Lagos, Leuven, and more, and documented his findings in Vintage & Rarities, a second book, and companion volume to Stompbox.
Paz’s experiences working alongside music and musicians are fascinating, and shed an important light on how the industry operates. I spoke with him about the fortuitous events that led him to music photography, and the reasons he chose to focus on books; his experiences compiling Dust & Grooves; the stories, travels, and adventures behind the creation of Stompbox; and the odd blessings that came in the wake of COVID and the subsequent lockdown.
Where are you from and how did you get into photography?
I am from Arad, in Israel. I grew up in the Negev, which is in the south, in the desert. Living in Arad, the closest town with a record store was an hour drive, so there was not a lot to do. But there was a lot of creativity, a lot of artists came to live in Arad looking for tranquility, quality of life, and desert life. I was surrounded by creative people, although my family are not really into the arts. At the age of 16, I picked up my dad’s camera, and did something like a photography course at the community center, and that’s how I got into photography. I had a really good teacher. He turned me on to some good photography, and he had good feedback. Photography also allowed me to photograph the beautiful girls in my school, and that would be my move. I’d ask, “Do you want great photos of you in the desert? Yes? [laughs]” I started, and I was drawn into portraits, fashion, and stuff like that, and then things obviously evolved.
Music is a big part of your life as well.
I was always into music. I listened to mine and my parent’s record collection, and then my brother got me into music. Back then, in the late 1980s early ‘90s, your sources for music were really limited. You’d exchange records or do listening sessions with friends. That’s how I got to know more people who play music, and I got more involved being around musicians.
Were you photographing shows as well?
To a certain degree, yes. Later, when I moved to Tel Aviv, to the big city, and started my career as a photographer, part of that was shows. I was the official photographer of Tel Aviv’s best underground club at the time, called Dinamo Dvash.
Did you shoot a lot of shows there?
Shows, DJs, and parties, and that got me even closer to the music. I always wanted to be around music. If I am not playing music, I would photograph musicians. I used to work with music labels, and I did some album covers, PR shots, and magazine work for Israeli artists.
Did you do photography as your army service?
No, I had physical profile that wouldn’t allow me to be in anything other than a battle unit. But me and the army didn’t get along. I didn’t like the structure and the system, being told what to do and being handled like a pawn.
Did you travel after your service?
I did the usual thing—how Israeli army veterans do—I went to work at the Dead Sea Works. I was a power plant operator—which was actually pretty fun—and then I went to travel. I settled in Sidney, Australia. I worked there for a year, and that’s when I first started assisting a commercial and corporate photographer. A year later, I came back to Israel, started my own life shooting, working with magazines—mostly travel, portrait, and table magazines—and that was then.
How did that lead to your first book, Dust & Grooves?
As a teenager, I started accumulating records and building my record collection. I had a really nice collection. For example, I had the entire Queen discography—I was a big fan of Queen and Brian May—and I had all their records on vinyl. That was from when I was 14 to 18. After that, I went to the army, and when you go to the army, you only go back home for a day every two weeks or so. My parents moved apartments back then, during that period, and my turntable and my records were in storage in the house. When they moved they said, “Nobody listens to records these days, CDs are what matter,” and they donated my records to the elder center in town.
Oh my goodness.
Yes. Oh my goodness. I didn’t realize that until I got released from the army. I went back to rejoin my collection, and it was gone. That was a traumatic event, between me and my parents and my record collection. For a long time, I didn’t have records. But then, when I moved to the the States, that was in 2008 and I was 33 at the time, and all of a sudden, there was an entire world opening up for me. The scene was blasting, dealing with records, exchanging records, and vinyl stores were popping up everywhere. There was an entire scene, which still keeps growing and growing. I was really inspired by that. Also, that was in 2008, when that economic recession started. I came to do my thing in America, but nothing was going on in America. No jobs. No work. No nothing. I wanted to do something that I cared about and to keep myself busy, so I started photographing and looking for record collectors and documenting them. It was just as a personal project.
Where was that, just around New York?
Just in my vicinity, but this is the digital age. I created a blog, and through the blog and through Facebook, the word got out that there was this photographer who was getting into people’s houses and photographing their record collections. It became really popular really quick. People were demanding more and more content, and it evolved from a blog into a website. I started taking that more seriously. I asked writers to write and to interview for me, and that eventually turned out to be a book. It took me about six years to complete.
Who were the writers? Were they friends or were you hiring pros?
People I knew. It started out as a hobby. You can see in the beginning that the questions from the interviews that I did were really amateurish. The photos were good, but that’s what I do. I didn’t know how to interview.
Did you run a Kickstarter campaign to fund the project?
It was a process. After maybe three years of putting stuff on the website, people started saying, “Why don’t you make a book out of it?” I was against it. I couldn’t even imagine doing something like that. I was timid. What did I know about making books? Who was going to buy it? How was I going to do it? But that was a turning point for me. It led me to where I am today, where I am concentrating on making books and channelling all my creative energy into creating books about music or that relate to music in any kind of way.
What pushed you past that fear of not wanting to do it?
The community. People gave me a lot of props and encouragement. I remember back then, when I started evaluating the idea, I said, “Maybe I should print a few of these photos, lay them on a big table, and see what’s happening.” When I did that, and I saw all these photos together, that’s when I realized that this was going to be a great book. That helped me channel my energy and I became super focused. I decided that If I was doing a book, I would do it the best way possible, and I started getting all the professional help that I needed.
How did you find that?
You just look. I looked at other books that I really liked, like coffee table books that I had in my house. I saw who the people working on them were: graphic designers, editors, copy editors, writers, and stuff like that. I had a strong network of creative people around Dust & Grooves. I gathered these people around me and I asked them, “Do you want to write for me or do you want to edit the book?” It came together in a very organic way, which was great. It is the best way to do things.
Where did you raise the money?
I raised some of the money on Kickstarter. I already had a significant amount of material to make a book, but I wanted to do something a little more special, and to finish it with a bang. I planned a big road trip circling the U.S. with many stops to photograph the world’s greatest record collectors. The Kickstarter was focused on that. I raised quite a bit of money, which gave me another confidence boost. The book was published about a year after that.
How did you hook up with Random House/Ten Speed Press?
I published the book, and it was basically already sold out when we launched it. Since all the copies were gone, I immediately said I was going to do another edition. I made another edition, and just before I was about to print it, Random House/Ten Speed found my book in a bookstore and said, “We want to publish your book.” They wanted to buy the rights. They did that, and they published a third edition. I published a second edition, some copies are out there, and they published a trade edition. It is basically the same book, but different printing, a little bit different size, and it’s still going on. The success of Dust & Grooves made me realize that this is a niche market, and that I needed to find another project. I started thinking, “How do I find something that is similar, with the same kind of ingredients, that could make a really good book, and that still has to do with music?” I started thinking about elements in music that are very visual, and the first thing I thought of is the guitar itself. But there are already books about famous guitars and guitarists, so that was off the table. I kept thinking, and I was looking for four main ingredients. I was looking for something that has a strong visual element to it. Obviously, guitar pedals are super visual, with endless designs and forms and shapes and colors and all that. I was looking for something that wasn’t done before. I looked around and there were no visual books about pedals. Another thing was a strong and passionate community. I searched and realized that there is a super strong community around pedals. Basically, if you want to define the community of people who love pedals, they are the nerds of rock ’n’ roll. I say it in the best way possible. They are people who are into gear and details and sounds. The fourth element is that it has to be collectable objects. There are a lot of people who collect pedals as well. It fit the bill.
Pedals are a world guitar players know a lot about, but as an outsider, how did you stumble upon it?
For me, I don’t play guitar, but as I said, I was always invested in music. I knew a lot about how it works. The idea of getting into pedals is all those things I said, but also, I guess, the fact that it is like the hidden element of rock ’n’ roll. Pedals for a guitarist are almost like spices for a chef. But the audience, they usually don’t know what pedals the guitarists use. Pedals lay on the floor or on a pedalboard, people don’t see them. They’re not the stars of the show. They’re not the headliners, but they are super important. They have a lot of character sonically, and also visually. For me, I was focusing on that. As a visual artist, I was focusing on the visual element of the pedals. As I learned working on Dust & Grooves, I had to bring in the reliable content. When I visualized Stompbox, it wasn’t as just a bunch of cool photos of pedals. I wanted to bring in the personal stories from the artists themselves. I didn’t want to get into too much technical writing. That is not the point of this book. The point of Stompbox is to get into the personal stories, some secrets they have, and to get into their history as musicians. As in, how these pedals shaped their sound, their music, and their art form.
Who was your first artist? Was that Lee Ranaldo?
He was the first one.
How did you find him?
I went to one of his shows. He lives in Manhattan, but he had a show at this underground avant-garde place in Brooklyn. What I did was, first, I borrowed some rare pedals from friends, and I did some test shots at home. I also put together a really nice pitch, just a couple of pages of what this book is about, how many pages, and the story behind it. I printed some photos, and then I gave that to him. I ambushed him after the show. I gave him that pitch, those photos, and a copy of Dust & Grooves. I asked him if he would be interested in doing this with me. He said yes and he gave me his email. I emailed him, and that was kind of easy. But then with him, having an in, and one thing leads to the other. Once I had his photo and his information, I started reaching out to other people that I knew, like music executives I knew from Dust & Grooves, and they helped me reach out to other players. That’s how I reached Tom Morello. He was the second artist I photographed, and he was through a personal connection I had with a music editor. One lead to the other, and I managed to get Vernon Reid, and from Vernon Reid, I got someone else. I was looking for an editor, someone to write the articles, and that’s how I found out about Barry Cleveland. Barry did work with me on the first few interviews, and he brought in John Frusciante, and from that moment on, the ball was rolling. I had a very strong idea of how I wanted it to look and what kind of stories I wanted to have in it. I started gathering more interviews and building up a team, and that’s what made the book so successful, beautiful, and reliable. I gathered the best writers in the field. The editors are James Rotondi and Dan Epstein.
How did that lead to photographing pedal collections?
At a certain point after working on the book and publishing to social media, I got an email from this guy from Kansas City, who told me that he has probably the world’s greatest pedal collection. His name is Josh Scott, the owner and creator of JHS pedals. He emailed me and said, “If you ever want to see the biggest pedal collection, you should come over.” That’s more or less the point where we thought, “There are so many pedals and so many people who collect pedals, and they’re not going to be in Stompbox because they don’t belong to famous artists.” I thought that maybe we should do another book, and that’s how Vintage & Rarities came about.
Josh Scott’s email was the impetus to do that?
He was the final thing that pushed it over the edge. I was traveling and seeing all these people and guitar techs, and photographing other pedals that artists had. I started to realize that there was more in this world than just these specific pedals from specific artists. When Josh came along, it was great, he had this amazing archive of pedals and he knows everybody in the business and community. I decided to create another book, which is Vintage & Rarities. It is actually a pretty amazing volume. It has 436 pages and 333 pedals photographed and documented and written about. Dan did all the writing and all the research. I can tell you this, even the most hardcore pedal expert, did not recognize all the pedals in the book.
You found so much crazy stuff?
I traveled to Japan and Russia. In Russia, I photographed these two guys that have a museum for Soviet era pedals, which is crazy. It’s beautiful and crazy and weird. Josh turned our attention to this privately owned museum for electronic instruments in Pennsylvania called the Electronic Music Education and Preservation Project. They have incredible artifacts, among them are the Jimi Hendrix Fuzz Face—one that belonged to Jimi—and we also managed to get a Mu-Tron Bi-Phase that belonged to Frank Zappa. For Vintage & Rarities we photographed a few vintage pedals like a wooden prototype of the Tone Bender, which no one has seen before.
You were traveling a lot, did Corona put everything on hold?
Not at all. In the winter of 2019, I literally did a round-the-world trip to complete the photoshoots for both books. My first stop was Kansas City to see Josh. I spent two-and-a-half days in his place shooting more than 100 pedals. Then I went to Nashville, the East Coast, Los Angeles and San Francisco, Seattle, and then Japan. That’s when Corona was starting to hit China, but it wasn’t effecting my travels at all. I went from there to Europe, France, Portugal, the U.K., came home, and that’s when Corona really started, around March. But in a surprising way, it helped get this book done on time. The major challenge with this book was to get interviews and to get the artists’ attention. We were aiming for famous people, people with a lot of history. We wanted to make this book appeal to a large audience, and we needed the star power. That's important, but getting these people to give you an interview about a pedal is not always easy. They either need to be really excited and really enthusiastic about pedals, or they need to be sitting at home doing nothing because of Corona [laughs], and that’s what happened. A lot of these artists all of a sudden became available. We did a lot of these interviews at the last minute, and we also manage to get a really nice foreword from Ed O'Brien from Radiohead.
When does the book hit the stands?
Pre-sale started October 15, and the official in-stores date is November 13. Tell people to visit the site to learn more.