Paul & Mills Amplification
It goes without saying that the accessibility to great priced custom gear is a privilege, and to have something like Paul &Mills amplification right here in south Florida especially with the music scene that surrounds these guys here in Davie Fl. It only made sense to see what these two were up to.
I’ve seen thousands of amps get rolled, dragged, carried in and out of venues for twenty-six years, and it’s the standards, your half stack this, your mini stack that with a double barreled what ever the hell it does, wrapped around a modular from a submarine radar.
The personality of the sound a band can get can only go so far when everyone is rockin the same gear. If you as a musician could create the perfect rig for the most power and clarity what would it be? What is the gear you feel is limiting your musical expression?
These are some of the things we got a chance to discuss with the two masterminds behind ‘ Paul & Mills amplification’
Owners David Hurteau and Justin Mills have been running P&M amplification for the past three years out of a little warehouse. The front of the space handles all the cabinet building, and the back houses a workbench filled with wattage readers, electrical testers, soldering kits.
A stack of finished products, and their practice areat’ to put their amps through the abuse they expect them to take. Is these guys’s workspace. It’s their office and nothing short of a laboratory of an audio junkie. It’s where they spend time creating a sound that is their own. Capturing it and with a few twist of a few wires, and a little solder here, and a hope I don’t get shocked there. These two make what ever sort of goodness they feel.
These two are and should be considered artist in this trade, although they never thought of themselves as artist, they hold more responsibility and accountability to the show then the musicians themselves.
The conversation started with the stock intro
“Who are you and what do you do”
“Im David Hurteau, Production Supervisor.” He points to Justin
“I’m Justin Mills, I design the electronics, pedals, and amplifiers.”
I jump right into it
“Why amps” I ask “was there anything about the amps you came across you didn’t like, something you wished you could improve?”
They look at each other to see who’s gonna take the first answer, David hits back first.
“I guess there will be two answers as to why we do what we do.” He stretches back, and the drum stool creeks, takes a shallow breath.
“I come from a background of construction, I’ve always been building stuff and one day I realized I wasn’t to happy with my gear so I figured I could build my own.” He pauses “you become a gear snob at some point and just never satisfied so I tried, and was able to make my own stuff” he nods his head as if he’s going over the answer up there. “I also like that it keeps me involved with music even if I’m not in a band, I can still be part of the team, sponsor bands and tours, so on.” He swivels back and forth in his seat. “the music angle may not work in my favor and doing this I know. There’s also a pride, its sort of patriotic to keep the gear state side and, so I’m kind of hoping to leave a legacy behind.”
He looks over and Justin takes over.
“I don’t know, for me it’s a little more of a selfish standpoint. I’ve been playing in bands for years and always had great gear but I was never satisfied with any of it for more then two days and then never use it again so eventually I figured I could build my own, so I researched on how it works, and built a pedal, and it worked, built another and it worked, so I kinda just told myself I’m onto something. I eventually was able to build a tube amp, which is what we do here. So it’s really been a ‘pursuit for tone’ rather then a legacy for me.”
I wanted to keep the conversation rolling but we are in South Florida, which is not shy of 90 degree weather. I turned on the portable AC, that we turned off to capture proper audio. I was pacing the room with one camera in hand, while I had one on a tripod capturing them in their realm – they sipped on water, my nose tickled a bit from the dust of skeletons of soon to be cabinets that’ll house a 2x 15’s and 3x 12’s with a horn. Covered in a liner built to handle the abuse of constant gigging and possible side-kicks.
David holds the silent pride in knowing he can kick a cabinet down some stairs, plug in, and play with no questions. I turn off the AC, which let them know it was time to talk. The camera was running, and I began.
How did you guys meet?
David picks it up.
“We were playing at the same venue one night and him and I” He waves his index finger back and forth. “started talking and ended up playing in a band after I lost some members. But none of those bands are around. We now play in another project together which is more for fun, not half as important as the company.”
There’s a pause in the conversation, and I look at them.
Have you guys thought about approaching the big stores with your stuff?
David takes this one.
“Not really it’s smarter for us to be factory direct, built to order. In order to sell to a store they would need to buy way to many at a certain price for it to make sense to them and it wouldn’t make sense, so that’s way in the future if at all…. possibly?”
“but we will be selling everything ourselves, and I hope to have our own store, that’s one of my things, but we haven’t really spoke about that thoroughly, cause its so far away. So it’ll be internet catalog based.”
He collects a thought
“Were not trying to stop at a certain point, because as big as it gets, is as big as it gets, as long as we don’t have to move our labor elsewhere.”
We chatted about Davids current band FERO LUX, and the abuse that’s instilled on the cabinets. The test is if David can bring one home after a show, and no damage is done then it is a successful piece. They’re covered in Tolex, which is basically truck bed liner. If you can throw tools on this stuff all day – it’ll survive gig after gig. And that’s why they do it. Throw a custom concept at them and they’ll do it, they’re releasing a distortion pedal, there is a delay then reverb coming soon after. So if you’re local, then I suggest contacting them when you’re shopping for new gear.
David demoed the amp the PME312 for me, which is a 1x15 and 3x12’s cabinet, and right away you can clearly hear a certain tone they have, there’s this simple crunch to it even when played clean. They have an edge to their sound without even trying. This cabinet was set up with a 100watt tube head which had a clean and overdrive channel with a foot switch. Classic sound classic set up. With a few simple adjustments between their distortion pedal and head they were able to take the sound from a 90’s Pumpkin tone to a 1978 punk dirtyness.
I wanted to let these two get back to work so I hit them up with a few final questions.
“let me ask you two” and they adjusted in their seats “ who would you consider to be the pretty one and who is the smart one?” they raise their eyebrows, and grin in synch.
“like who would be the business face and who would be the mastermind?”
David and Justin answer together and jumble a few words, then David takes over.
“As far as the business side of stuff and the aesthetics I would say I would be that one, as far as the making sure the product gets built that is up to Justin, he can’t be dealing with phone calls and appointments if he’s dealing with electricity and running wires.” Justin jumps in
“Yeah if I’m dealing with the laying out of a head and the work bench has all these things going on, I cant be stopping, cause its really hard to get back to it if you put it down. Which wire was I touching last, what wasn’t connected, I really can’t be doing that.”
They were processing that last one so I hit with one more.
“If you guys could have someone, someone’s, play your gear, who would they be?” and right away you can see their heads spinning, they mumble over each other “ohh that’s a tough one you know there’s gonna be different answers for this.” David starts with.
“My first top two would be going to two different spectrums.” he scratches his eyebrow and Justin leans back in his seat. David leans forward placing his elbows on his knees, he cracks his knuckles one by one and one by one you hear. ‘CRACK,CRACK,CRACk’
“I would have to say ‘The Dillinger Escape Plan’ to ruin our stuff- that’s a really insane show, if my gear can live through one leg of their tour then I know I’m doing the right thing. On the other side of the spectrum as far as intensity or not, It would have to be ‘Autolux’ An amazing band and very picky it seems – it’s a very sonically controlled sound, it seems they leave no leeway, it’s a very specific sound they keep and managed to maintain. So yeah these are who I would like to go for.” David leans back, and follows with
“There’s a lot of local guys using our stuff like Sleep Patterns, Basebourne, reverie, and Gillian carter.
David nods his head to his answer and directs the attention to Justin, He sits a second and seals his answer.
“I guess that’s a question I hadn’t given a lot of thought to, but I would kinda like to see the Apple seed Cast use our stuff. And I think they would actually dig the clean channel for their sort of sound. And I think it would be really cool to have the Deftones use our stuff.”
Justin and David discuss the Deftones current amp set up. Justin continues. “ I think the drive channel in fact would suite their sound quite well.”
David jumps in “were gonna also start making a cabinet for 8-string guitars which is something he’s (carpenter – Deftones) into also, the 8-string thing is not something any specific company Is addressing and it’s a growing subsection of the industry, and were not gonna corner it, its not something were gonna abuse.” David starts drumming on his knees and Justin jumps in
“There’s a lot of kids picking up 8-strings and they should be able to play with something that’s not gonna kill theirs or their parents pockets.”
They smile – I close out the conversation.