That's because when you use a distorted sound, you have turned up the noise as well as the signal. Single coil pickups are just noisey. Borrow a guitar with humbuckers and see if there is a difference.
funny you would say that
I use 5 minuite epoxy relegiously to insulate between the wires on phone jacks when building guitar cables and also to insure a goood strong joint that will not pull loose.
after I solder the the joints I will epoxy the bare wire to the jack and cable (I basically incase the tip/(sleeve if aplicable) and ground lug in epoxy then slide the little clear piece of tube up around the terminal... Neatness counts) then let it dry, then I will slide a piece of 2.5" long shrink tubing up on the epoxied jack then shrink it around the jack and cable
this makes for one tough and virtually indestructable cable at least you won't have to worry about a loose connection at the jack anyways.
I also do this with speaker cables.
I have to do it because I have a few guys in the sound crew who are rough on equipment especially cords.
I know this is kind of off topic but I thought i would share this little cable building tip with everyone reading this thread.
or you can get this set of 3 calibrated from Guitar fetish.com
front
back
they are also labled in order so you dont make any mistakes
I just built a strat for a buddy of mine using this set of GFS pickups and it sounds awesome.
they are avalable in creme and black. they are like around $65.00 per set with shipping, which is not a bad price for good tone.