Guard House Pictures recently announced the release of Cry Baby: The Pedal That Rocks The World, a definitive documentary that tells the story of the #1-selling effects pedal of all time, from its invention in 1966 through its evolution into the present day. The wah-wah effect was an essential ingredient in the creation of classics like JIMI HENDRIX' 'Voodoo Child (Slight Return)', METALLICA’s 'Enter Sandman', and GUNS N' ROSES’ 'Sweet Child O’ Mine'. Robert Gray at Ultimate-Guitar.com recently caught up with co-director Joey Tosi to discuss the project. An excerpt is available below:

Q: How did 'Cry Baby: The Pedal That Rocks The World' come about?

Tosi: "It came about because Jimmy Dunlop wanted to celebrate thirty years of Cry Baby being in the hands of the Dunlop family, and wanted to find a way to give back to the guitar community instead of creating a new product or something for somebody to buy. I had a film school background along with Max Baloian, the other director on this project. We pitched him the idea of a documentary, he loved it and he let us do it."

Q: Once the project was greenlighted, how did you and Max approach finding suitable interviewees?

Tosi: "We have a very good artist relations team here. There are two guys on our artist relations team named Scott Uchida and Bryan Kehoe, and they had a really great relationship with a lot of the artists that were in the movie. Both of those guys worked really hard to firstly decide who the people were that we should be talking to and inform us of that, and then to contact them, tell them what we were doing and set up interviews with them. Usually, once the guitar player heard about what we were trying to do... Guitar players love Cry Baby, so they were just very enthusiastic about it from the beginning. Everybody really jumped in, and gave us their full support right from the very beginning."

Q: What do you feel is the appeal of the wah-wah pedal? What makes it so special?

Tosi: "What makes the wah-wah pedal special is two things. It gives the ability to make your guitar sound more like the human voice than any other effect pedal, and I think people connect with it that way because it sounds more like human communication than any other effect pedal does for the guitar. The second thing that makes it very popular I think is that for the guitar player playing it is it's up to them, the riffs that they choose and the way that they move their foot to create the sound so that no two people can actually play the exact same thing the exact same way. It's always unique in each individual's hands, or foot for the guitar player that's playing it."

Go to this location for the complete interview.

The film looks at how engineer Brad Plunkett discovered and developed the legendary wah sound and how artists have used it to express themselves throughout its evolution. Guitar icons such as BUDDY GUY, EDDIE VAN HALEN, KIRK HAMMETT, SLASH and ZAKK WYLDE talk about how the wah has become a part of their signature sounds, while rock journalists such as Rolling Stone’s Ben Fong-Torres and Guitar Player’s Art Thompson explore the pedal’s cultural significance.

Learn how a simple effect became one of the most important tools of expression for guitarists everywhere.

Featuring: Eddie Van Halen, Jerry Cantrell, Slash, Buddy Guy, Kirk Hammett, Zakk Wylde, Dweezil Zappa, Eddie Kramer, Paul Gilbert, Bob Bradshaw, Brad Plunkett, Wah Wah Watson, Jim Dunlop, Jimmy Dunlop, Jasmin Powell and many more.

The full film can be seen below: