Loud, Butt, Face, and Grunge is what it chose to say, perfectly expressing the angsty late-night MTV emotion of an era.ĭOD is traditionally known for their plain-Jane aesthetic, using real, simple colors and normal fonts with typical knob controls such as level, tone, and distortion. The Grunge pedal had irresistible charm for any ’90s kid wanting to sound like Kurt Cobain (and let’s be honest: who didn’t?) Its control knobs didn't use annoying adult labels like Volume, Tone, or Distortion. Jason Lamb's first contribution to DOD comes through the FX69 Grunge. So, without further ado, let’s dive down the rabbit hole. Given the identity of the man behind the curtain, it should come as no surprise that the “Lamb Series” line of pedals (a name that I am proud to have coined from my show) that closed out DOD’s American-Made era of the late 1990s are, by definition, as unique as it gets. But there was no way to sugar-coat it: a young, punk-rocking skateboarder now steered the ship one of America's legendary pedal brands. Having recently designed a successful distortion pedal on the back of the booming Seattle Grunge scene, Jason showed promise for holding down the analog division as everyone else focused on Digitech. In doing so, he handed over the entire DOD pedal line to a punk-rocking skateboarder named Jason Lamb. In the 1990s, as Digitech (the digital partner company to DOD) continued to expand, the leader of DOD, John Johnson, decided to go fully into Digitech and commit all of his time to its growth. So it might surprise you that the Lamb pedal series, one of the most irreverent and oddball in pedal history, came from DOD in the 1990s. Their graphics, circuits, and company mantra were founded and sustained on the approachable, working-man idea of a simple quality product.
Started by two men in a humble Salt Lake City garage, DOD held on to their roots every step of the way. In the early 1970s, DOD came onto the scene and almost instantly became a guitar pedal powerhouse, so much so that by the 1980s they were referred to as “America's pedals.” While other USA companies in the early ’80s (like Electro Harmonix and MXR) ended in bankruptcy, DOD lasted through the Japanese invasion of BOSS and Ibanez by adapting to the “new era” of guitar pedals.