Why Dean Dichoso likes the Dean Hardtail

I really like using the Hardtail because it is truly a marvel in guitar-engineering simplicity. Its tone is graceful and commanding. Unlike other "popular" double or single cutaways, the Hardtail's tone is intensely focused and very rich. The low-end response is very big and very tight. The mids to highs are balanced and not obtrusive. Each and every note of the most complex chord structures is heard with outstanding clarity when played on the Hardtail on clean and with sparkling articulation on high-gain distortion. When I play lead-type parts, the Hardtail confidently sings. I need a guitar that can really translate my fast right-hand technique correctly without muddying up in faster tempos. What a feeble task that is for the Hardtail - it's as if the guitar is playfully taunting me to go faster. It is so precise and percussive.

The Hardtail is incredibly studio-friendly. The electronics are so incredibly quiet that the guitar scoffs at the site of a noise gate, even on full gain analog metal distortion. Speaking of distortion, the Hardtail's well balanced tone is ideal for it. The pickups are so full of tone that they push serious signal and especially said tone through my array of analog pedals with extremely minimal degradation.

 

Lastly, the Hardtail is nothing if not reliable onstage. I play it very, very hard. It stays in tune. The neck is incredibly strong. The guitar's ability to reproduce my pinch harmonics is amazing. A truly demanding player should be so lucky to play such an instrument as the Hardtail. This is the only guitar I need performing on the road. Its sound quality is matchless and its reliability is unrivaled. Mr. Zelinsky has truly outdone all the "leading" solid body/arch top brands, but especially himself. This is the most musically brutal guitar I have ever played.

The Limp Bizkit Story Dean Dichoso of Mondoz, One of 4 Finalists in Limp Bizkit’s “Put Your Guitar Where Your Mouth Is” guitarist search tour.

Dean Dichoso is the guitarist for alternative-metal group Mondoz.  When Dean isn’t busy with Mondoz, he leads a double life.  By day, he is a communications student at The University of Texas at Austin.  By night however, he is a hardcore studio musician right at home recording, producing, rehearsing, or composing well into the next day.  He offers his drumming talents around Austin, TX., to various artists seeking seasoned drum/percussion performances in studio sessions or in a live show.   Dean is also a proficient guitar player.  His instrument of choice?  Dean Guitars of course.   Speaking of his guitar talents, he was given a rare opportunity to show multi-platinum rap-rock artist Limp Bizkit just how good he was.  The following story breaks down exactly what we mean.

On January 6, 2002 Dean was in Los Angeles for a routine social visit with Erik Barajas, a good old friend of his.  Erik being a fellow guitar player went with Dean to hang out at the local Hollywood Guitar Center.  Dean saw a little red flier that said something like, “Limp Bizkit is searching for a guitar player… It could be you!”  Limp Bizkit was evidently holding auditions for a new guitarist, and under the ad were the 22 different dates, cities, and respective Guitar Centers listed that Limp Bizkit planned to stop in.  Noticing that he could not make the Hollywood date, he soon realized that they were stopping in Austin, TX close to a month from that point.  Dean isn’t a full fledged Limp Bizkit fan.  He only enjoyed the first album and found no interest in the latter albums.  He told Erik – and himself – that he wouldn’t try out.  He saved the flier anyway.

Refayat Ali, Nathan Mcdaniel (top middle), Dean Dichoso DEAN PLAYER!!!!

Finally the day of truth was approaching.   Dean, back in Austin, TX, while organizing his apartment stumbled across the flier that he obtained during his trip to the West Coast.  LB’s Austin, TX stop was February 8, 2002 with limited signups starting at 7am which was the following day.  It was February 7 at 9:00pm and still not planning on going, he called guitar tech and friend Shady Nullbyte for advice.  Shady told him to do whatever he wanted and that he would go with him if he decided to go.  At 10:00pm Dean decided that his homework was more important and still decided not to go……. at 4:00am on February 8, he called Shady and told him to get dressed.  They were on their way to Guitar Center to have Dean audition.

The bassplayer from LB is Sam Rivers,Dean, & DJ Lethal.

Dean and Shady rolled in at about 4:15am and signed Dean in.  He was number 42 of what was expected to be around 300 hopeful guitarists.  At around 10am which was 6 hours later, Guitar Center stopped the signups.  There were about 250 guitarists in line.  GC employees were running up and down the line offering Krispy Kreme doughnuts and coffee.  After standing in line for almost 8 hours, Dean finally reached the table where he was required to sign contracts and waivers as formality prior to his entrance.  Dean was fighting to stay awake.  When he entered Guitar Center, he was grouped with five or six other guitar players in a line to the primary audition which was being held in a small room.

A GC employee at this line said “…as soon as I open this door, you get in before the other guy gets out….we are moving very fast…..” Each guitarist was given a maximum of about 60 seconds and then told to leave. Most of them however did not last more than 20 seconds in the room. When it was number 42’s turn, Dean stepped into the room. Immediately he was given a cable to a moderately loud half-stack and asked to “just simply jam.” He was going to play for Flawless Records A&R Danny Wimmer. It did not take long for Dean and the rest of the auditionees to realize that he had been in there for close to a minute, which was much longer than the approximate 15-20 seconds everyone else was given. Dean, noticing the extended time period he was being given, stopped playing in the interest of not being rude to the other players, so as to give them their time to play. Just like the rest of them, Dean left the room very bewildered and unsure of the rest of the day’s turnout.

Dean with LB drummer John Otto.

Those four guitarists were narrowed down to two.  It was Dean and a guitarist named Jeff.  Dean and Jeff got to jam with Limp Bizkit that night.  After a game of Rock Paper Scissors, Jeff went first.  Jeff jammed about 2 songs before he left the jam room.  When Dean went in, one of the band’s crew had told Dean that he was going to play two songs with the band and that was it.  That is exactly what Dean did.  Then, the band asked him to do two more, once again keeping him longer than they had done to everyone else.  After a good jam, Dean went home exhausted and having missed a Japanese language midterm.

Almost a month later on March 1, 2002,  Flawless Records called Dean after his Astronomy class to tell him that he was chosen as one of four guitarists from the 6,002 that they tried out to fly up to Hollywood to make a “Real-World-Style” documentary and Jam and Hang out with Limp Bizkit as the final audition.  When he got there, he was promptly greeted by a camera at the Baggage claim at Los Angeles International Airport and met up with LB production manager Yeti Ward who explained the remainder of the trip to him.  He then met up with his roommates to be and the three other ‘worthy’ guitarists Nathan Mcdaniel of Shotgun XII from Kentucky, Tom McNamara of Blind Hate Experiment from New Jersey, and Refayat “Russell” Ali of King Me from Kansas.

It was only 2 hours after he arrived that he was driven to the band’s studio to begin.  Dean jammed with LB from 5:00pm to 3:00am that night.  The remainder of the two-week trip went pretty much that way.  The other guitarists had a chance to do so as well in that time.  With two of the guitarists working on some sponsorships at this time with “another” major guitar company and having new guitars sent to them, Dean realized that he needed to get on the ball with locating his instrument. 

Dean, realizing how serious this event had become for him decided to humbly call Dean Zelinsky for some help.  Dean had been eyeing and researching the Hardtail for a very long time.  Owning nearly 30 guitars, Dean knew what he wanted and Mr. Zelinsky without hesitation send him a blue quilt Hardtail.  Not only did Dean want to represent Dean Guitars on Camera, but he needed a super high quality instrument he could trust to finish off the audition with.

Although LB still could not make a decision on one of the four guitarists, they are still considered as “on-call” for a trip back as of now.  Dean is now back in Austin, TX back on his own musical work as a session drummer, doing pre-production for emerging artists, and especially as guitarist for Mondoz. 

Dean Dichoso
Mondoz – featuring Dean Guitar player

“A breath of fresh air in a tiredly formulaic music scene, Mondoz builds upon the efforts of some of the world's most innovative bands. Mondoz is influenced by the cerebrality of lyrics and technicality of performance of Rush, by the emotive, psychedelic, and epic aspects of Pink Floyd, and by the controlled aggression, complex arrangements and dark mood of Tool.”

Click above for info on the Hardtail

Most of Mondoz’s fans are surprised when they find out that guitarist Dean Dichoso of the alt-metal group is primarily a drummer.  “I have been studying percussion since I was 6 years old.”  This doesn’t mean that he puts secondary priority on his guitar playing though.  Having grown up on speed-metal, death-metal, progressive-rock, early 90’s grunge, and East-Coast Hardcore, Dean’s guitar playing had evolved over nearly a decade.  Dean’s guitar work in Mondoz proves to be anything but ordinary.  He relies on modifying analog effects real-time, swiftly switching from soft, ambient textures to ultra-fast shred, whilst playing very technically demanding guitar parts.  His tone is murderously high-gain when distorted and super crystal clear when clean.  He needs a very musically dynamic and sensitive instrument capable of performing these tasks onstage and in the studio – something that can accurately speak both tonal languages - both angelically lyrical and damagingly aggressive.  Dean believes in investing in quality when it comes to guitars. 

Owning nearly thirty guitars, Dean is on a constant search for the right one.  “My playing speaks many musical languages.  My instrument must be sophisticated enough to translate all of them to sound as incredible as possible.”   Dean chooses the Dean Hardtail as his instrument of choice both in the studio and in live settings.  He has also been known to use a modified Dean Mach V for earlier Mondoz material onstage. You can learn more about Mondoz at www.mondoz.com