“It should be – and usually is – pedal-first for us, because pedals can affect your playing so much”: Shoegaze heroes DIIV on how stompboxes formed the building blocks of their new album

(L-R) Colin Caulfield, Andrew Bailey, Ben Newman and Zachary Cole Smith of American rock band Diiv perform during the Ypsigrock Festival at Castle of Castelbuono on August 7, 2022 in Castelbuono, Italy.

New York-based band DIIV have been hailed as modern shoegaze luminaries, especially since the reverb-and-delay-drenched subgenre made a massive mainstream comeback last year.

Perhaps it’s not surprising then that in the new issue of Total Guitar, guitarists Zachary Cole and Andrew Bailey describe their approach to writing as “pedal-first”.

Speaking to the publication ahead of the release of their forthcoming record, Frog in Boiling Water (due May 24), the duo discuss their tone-orientated writing technique.

“I think it should be, and usually is, pedal first for us, because pedals can affect your playing so much,” says Cole. 

“DIIV started as a template and we’ve always written within the effects chain to achieve that sound. If there’s something you want to be in the final song and you have an idea for it, you want to add those effects in as soon as you can.”

Cole and Bailey also discuss how this sonic experimentation has impacted the gear they can take on tour. 

“We’ve started using the RJM Mastermind PBC/10 effects switcher which allows us to give our pedals MIDI parameters. The goal is to not have to touch pedals at all. We want as many pedals that can be MIDI controlled as possible,” explains Cole. 

A selection of DIIV’s gear, photographed on tour in Manchester (Image credit: DIIV/Total Guitar June '24 edition)

“We both use the Strymon Timeline and BigSky as our delays and reverbs, and it will send the tempos and presets of each song to the pedals. That gives us a lot of flexibility in terms of not having to tap out tempos and tweak settings by hand between every song.”

Bailey and Cole also mention the ProCo Rat distortion, Fulltone OCD overdrive, Earthquaker Devices Gray Channel and Boss OD-200 among their go-to drive pedals, as they can also be controlled by Mastermind. 

“I also have the Chase Bliss Pre-amp MKII, which is all over the new record,” adds Bailey. “It’s all MIDI, so I can tap my foot on the chorus preset and I watch all the little faders go up and down. It’s mad!”

DIIV release their fourth album, Frog In Boiling Water, on May 24 via Fantasy. The band kicks off their North American leg of the album tour on June 6 at The Catalyst in Santa Cruz, California. 

For more DIIV, plus new interviews with St. Vincent, Slash and Buzz Osbourne, pick up the issue 384 of Total Guitar at Magazines Direct.