Tommy talks about select songs and how he played on them.

“End of Heart” from the album “Lightspeed and Holding” – This was our attempt at pop song. We put the lead vocal up front without too much echo and toned down some of the white noise. I mostly strummed through the song. It wasn’t till the end that I started to pick a melody.
I was using a Tokai Lester at that time. The bridge pick-up had been replaced with a Dimarzio Super Distortion and the neck had an old P.A.F I had bought off a guy for $20.00. I also had a white Tokai Strat-copy that I used on a lot of the songs.
My amp was a Roland JC-120. I loved the fact that it had a foot-switch-able distortion and chorus. So cool. I did us a little Marshall practice amp that belonged to Tommy, our drummer, for some of the solos on that album, but on this song it was only the Roland.
The only effects I used, other than the amp’s, was a crybaby wah and Big Muff fuzz pedal. I used them both on this song, along with the chorus to create that wall of sound for the song. We added some plate reverb to it. In fact we put the amp facing the plate reverbs so they would vibrate the plates in sympathy and create a bigger sound. At least that’s what we thought it would do. (laughs)

“Short Road to Ruin” from the album “If the Moon had to Run away” – We really wanted to create a hard tight punk sound for this song. Kind of like a salute to The Ramones. Instead it became more spacy and weird. I guess it was us playing a Ramones song, only as we would play it. If that makes sense.
I had just bought an Ibanez Destroyer. It wasn’t the Phil Colin model I wanted, but it was pretty cool. Black with Dimazio’s. Plus, I had bought a 50-watt Marshall head. Because I had read about the Scorpians had preferred 50 watt heads over 100 watt heads. Not sure why, but at the time I thought that sounded good. (laughs).
Those and a Boss DS-1 Distortion pedal formed my ‘crunch’ side and my other stuff was my wall of noise and side. This song was just my crunch side. We played the song about seven times and I think this was the second take. We were all in one room, even Keith. He just stood with us, and sang the song wearing headphones and holding the mic.
I then overdubbed some more guitars to thicken the sound and add some movement to the rhythm. Maybe four total, but it took about three hours. Just to make sure they were tight, we did them piece by piece.

“Blindsided” from the album “ “ This album really grew out of playing so many gigs. To keep the shows fresh to us, we would jam a lot. We would just lock into a groove and improvise over it. Looking back it wasn’t that brilliant, but it was a blast to play. Almost every night, at least once, we would just lock into something so tight and suddenly it would transcend and become something amazing. We would be following each other so tightly, that we could change to something new so perfectly it would seem as though we had practiced it a hundred times. Instead it be the first we played it.
Anyways, this song comes directly from that time. That’s why it kind of pulses along. I had added a Boss Delay pedal and I used it on the song to create that rhythmic sound.
We had been listening to a lot of Syd Barrett era Pink Floyd at this time. So that’s why the album has an odd psychedelic quality. We were playing “Insterstellar Overdrive” at our shows during that time.
On this tour we played that song, “Waiting for the man”, and “Drugs” almost every night.

“Altamont High”