Howard Alexander Dumble, the genius boutique guitar amp maker who passed away in January, counted many of the electric guitar's biggest names as clients.
Eric Johnson, John Mayer, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Orianthi, and Joe Bonamassa are just a few of the big names who use Dumble's meticulously-crafted amps. Now, apparently, you can add Slash to that impressive list.
In a recent interview with Premier Guitar, the top-hatted guitar legend revealed that he only recently played a Dumble for the first time during the sessions for his new album with Myles Kennedy & the Conspirators, 4.
“It was the first time I consciously knew I was playing through a Dumble amp,” Slash said. “I’ve been hearing that name forever, but I didn’t know what it was. [Dave Cobb, 4's producer] introduced me to a Fender that Dumble had customized, and it sounds fuckin’ amazing. I didn’t actually record anything with it, but it just sounded really good.”
The amp sounded so good, in fact, that Slash subsequently reached out to Dumble to secure one of his coveted amps for himself.
“I got in touch with Alex after the session and he actually did a Fender for me,” Slash said in the interview, which Premier Guitar says was conducted before Dumble's passing. “It sounds really great. He’s not easy to get in touch with or to get him to do something, it became very apparent. So it was an honor to have him do something for me. But I didn’t know the history before.
"There was some discrepancy over the cost of it for a second, but he and I got to be good friends as a result of that," Slash added. "I didn’t know how much it cost, I thought ‘five’ meant five-hundred bucks!”
It's hard to know for certain, given the personal nature of Dumble's builds, but it seems – given what we know about the timeline – that Slash's Dumble is likely one of the final projects the great craftsman ever completed.
