“I walked up to Tony Iommi and said, ‘Why don’t you just use my amp?’ He saw it was solid-state and said, ‘No, I’m not going to use that!’” Frank Marino on why solid-state amps make the best pedal platforms and starting his own stompbox company

As one of the fiercest guitarists of the immediate post-Hendrix generation, Canadian Frank Marino blazed a trail as a shredding soloist, master of riffage, and one of the game’s earliest hot-rodders. If you listened to any of his output with Mahogany Rush, you’re very aware of his prowess.

But to see Marino live was to see him in his true element: backed by any number of solid-state amps and a six-foot-long pedalboard at his feet, filled with stompboxes of his own creation – in an era when oodles of pedals weren’t a thing.

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Andrew Daly is an iced-coffee-addicted, oddball Telecaster-playing, alfredo pasta-loving journalist from Long Island, NY, who, in addition to being a contributing writer for Guitar World, scribes for Rock Candy, Bass Player, Total Guitar, and Classic Rock History. Andrew has interviewed favorites like Ace Frehley, Johnny Marr, Vito Bratta, Bruce Kulick, Joe Perry, Brad Whitford, Rich Robinson, and Paul Stanley, while his all-time favorite (rhythm player), Keith Richards, continues to elude him.