DOUG GILLARD IS INDISPENSABLE

His six-string genius has proved vital to the music of Guided by Voices, Nada Surf and other indie-rock favorites. But all he really wants is to make good music.

- TOM BEAUJOUR

IF YOU’RE A regular at Guided by Voices shows — and most of the band’s rabid fans have seen the group dozens, if not hundreds, of times — you’ll know what to expect when you turn your gaze stage left: lead guitarist Doug Gillard, legs apart, feet firmly planted on the ground, heavily worn black Les Paul Custom slung over his shoulder, while an equally well-used Mesa Dual Rectifier blasts out the cascading licks, signature riffs and tightly clustered chord voicings that have made him one of indie rock’s most celebrated players and landed him on Rolling Stone’s list of “The 250 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.”

“Doug is original and also diverse in technique,” says Robert Pollard, Guided by Voices’ frontman and principal songwriter. “He can let loose when he wants to, but he doesn’t wank. He shows restraint, and his playing compliments the songs.” Since first catching Pollard’s attention in the 1980s while playing in the Cleveland group Death of Samantha, Gillard (who also played with Ohioan provocateurs Cobra Verde) has done two tours of duty in Guided by Voices: the first from 1996 to the group’s “retirement” at the end of 2004, and again from 2016 to the present.

In the interim, Gillard spent more than five years touring and recording extensively with alternative-rock group Nada Surf. “We’d always admired Doug’s playing from a distance,” Nada Surf frontman Matthew Caws says. “But when we met and he sat in on a couple of songs as a guest on our 2010 covers album, If I Had a Hi-Fi, he made up parts so catchy that within half an hour he felt indispensable.”

Gillard has also released several solo efforts, including 2014’s excellent Parade On, produced albums by the Eternal Summers and others, and contributed to discs by artists as diverse as Neko Case, the Mice and the Hold Steady.