What’s your involvement with Tallon?
I’m Sean Mackowski. I started Tallon Electric in 2023 with my friend and business partner Luke Shomo.
How did you get started with creating and tinkering with pedals?
I built my first pedal on a bus at Warped Tour in 2011 when I was singing and playing guitar for a band called Attack Attack! I was really young and kept to myself mostly, so building a guitar pedal sounded like a good excuse to stay out of the summer heat. I had packed this “build your own pedal” kit based on the Proco Rat, so I fired up a cheap soldering iron and put it together on a table in the front lounge. I still have that pedal, and somehow it still works!
What was your first successful pedal that made it to market?
For a long time I did not want to turn my hobby into a business. I felt like I didn’t have anything special to offer that could separate me from all the creative people in this industry who are frankly much more educated than me when it comes to electronics.
Eventually, I had the idea to collaborate with a band and build a pedal they could offer up to their fans. Almost like merch, but a little more serious and useful. I connected with my friend Johnny Franck from Bilmuri, who was starting to gain a crazy dedicated followin, and agreed to help design “The Hog” together. That pedal was basically a live test run for this entire business. We built 50 pedals, tossed a website together, and just made a post on social media. We sold out in about 30 minutes, and I thought ok, I guess I have a valid idea to build off of here haha.
I talked to the Alphawolf boys at Inkcarceration and you collated with them to create The Noise pedal. Many bands are using it now, so what can you tell us about the background behind the creation of The Noise?
I’ve honestly lost track of how many bands have used it now. I’m so incredibly thankful. It blows away every time I hear it on new songs that are being released. I know I’ve heard it on songs from Mugshot, Fit For A King, Bilmuri, and Good Charlotte. It’s been used on some stuff that hasn’t dropped yet too, but that’s still secret haha.
Scottie Simpson from Alphawolf was actually the one that had the idea for the pedal. This was a sound they had developed in the studio and had used all over their album “A Quiet Place To Die”. They were having trouble recreating that effect with other pedals while they were on tour, so they came to us to see if we could work on something custom. He pretty much showed us what he had done, and we rebuilt the signal flow until we felt like we had nailed that chaotic pitch shift effect.
What other collabs are currently out, and what do they do?
The Hog (Bilmuri) - This is a blended overdrive and distortion. If you put it between a fender style amp and a strat type guitar, it’ll get you pretty dang close to that jangly but heavy Bilmuri tone.
ABR-OD (August Burns Red) - The guys in ABR have always built their tone with an OD-808 style overdrive feeding into a 5150 style amp. We basically asked them how they would change the overdrive if they were starting from scratch and could adjust anything they wanted. We came up with the ABR-OD, which has a couple voicing modes and a completely custom EQ section that focuses more on manipulating the midrange before it hits the specific high gain amps they use.
The Wolf (A Plea For Purging) - Blake Martin was kind enough to let us build this for him to celebrate their “comeback” for Furnace Fest in 2023. We wanted to recreate the lo-fi sound from the beginning of their song “The Life”, so we built it as an overdrive with a lo-fi filter mode that can actually get pretty nasty.
We also have the Dual Drive, which I built as my own “dream” dirt pedal. It’s a dual overdrive pedal (hence the name) that I took a lot of time voicing to work really well with EL-84 mid gain amps like the AC30 or this Matchless Lightning that I have. It’s honestly just a pet project that I took on early in the life of this company, but I really believe it ended up being an extremely versatile and useful as a gain staging tool.
What artists/sounds would you love to work with and create?
I feel like Will Swan from Dance Gavin Dance could bring an insane idea to the table, and I’d love to have a crack at making something he considers to be cool. A couple members from Sleep Token have used The Noise on stage, and I certainly wouldn’t hesitate to start designing something with them if they had the itch to release a guitar pedal of some sort. If Circa Survive were still around, they would definitely be at the top of my wish list as well.
What would you like to accomplish in the next 5 years? 10?
I just want a job that I love, and I want to be able to hire my talented friends so they can have the same. Anything above that is icing on the cake.
Anything you’d like to say to anyone who’s purchased any products from Tallon Electric?
Thank you for trusting us. With this being an inherently creative endeavor, we pour a lot of ourselves into these products. It’s truly a special thing when somebody decides to incorporate one of our pedals into their own creative outlet. That decision doesn’t go unnoticed or unappreciated on our end.
What’s your favorite pedal you’ve made so far and why?
The Noise for sure. I’m just so glad I was able to meet the high bar that the Alphawolf guys had set haha. It’s an easy pedal to be proud of.
What would you say to musicians who haven’t tried out a Tallon Electric pedal yet?
Please just give us a shot. Absolute worst case, you’ll find out this pedal wasn’t for you and you can claw your money back by selling it to somebody else on Reverb.
Big thanks to Sean from Tallon Electric for the time of day! I ran into him shortly after my Alphawolf interview at Inkcarceration Festival. Check out everything Tallon Electric here: https://tallonelectric.com