Rig Rundowns

“Our relationship is everything about this band,” conceded  Rebecca Lovell to  PG  in 2022 . “The way that we communicate, the way that we play together, the way that we facilitate one another’s musicianship. It is the air that we breathe as a band, and everything revolves around our siblinghood.” Their symbiotic sorcery has taken them from budding bluegrass pickers in the Lovell Si...

Tim Pierce’s guitar can be heard on more than a thousand recordings, starting in the ’80s, when he played on hits by Bon Jovi, John Waite, and Rick Springfield. In subsequent years, he’s added to his resume with recorded performances for Crowded House, Christina Aguilera, Seal, Avril Lavigne, Tracy Chapman, Joe Cocker, Ricky Martin, Meat Loaf, Rod Stewart, Elton John, Michael Jackson, Bruce Spring...

Crobot’s hard-riffin’, smooth-groovin’ rock anthems often ride on the back of guitarist Chris Bishop’s handiwork. The guitarist carefully corrupts his tone with creative pedal tweaking, but he’s never lost sight of his role within the quartet. “The groove is the most important thing in the song and, being the only guitar player, my main focus is to make sure that’s there,”  explains Bishop to...

Steel: hard metal. Panther: one of the most ferocious animals. Put them together, and you have perhaps the greatest band of the 21st century. And, hot off the release of their latest, most ass-kicking album ever, Steel Panther is re-invading America. While in Nashville, before they played a blistering set for a packed crowd at  Marathon Music Works , Panther’s lead guitarist Satchel invited&n...

Full Rig Details: https://bit.ly/EricGalesRR2023 Eric Gales is back again. Since last chatting with John Bohlinger in 2017, the blues maestro’s rig has transitioned to include more signature Raw Dawg gear pieces—including pedals, amps, and, of course, his signature Magneto guitars. Just last year, the lefty slinger released the Grammy-nominated, Crown, which features collabs with his pal Joe Bonam...

Bush had an unbelievable debut with 1994’s  Sixteen Stone  that eventually surpassed 6x platinum status. The post-grunge juggernaut continued making moody, mercurial, and sometimes menacing music has continuing mutating while keeping them modern with a total of nine full-length releases with 2022’s  The Art of Survival  as their most recent chapter. The band’s headlining Ryman...

Right now, they’re in Europe, but Atlanta-based rockers with a distinctly Southern musical accent, Blackberry Smoke, smoked Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium for two nights in February before jumping the pond. Their latest album,  You Hear Georgia , was produced by Dave Cobb in Nashville, and hit the top of the  Billboard  Americana/Folk chart when it was released in mid-2021.  PG ’...

It’s been 11 years since  Kenny Wayne Shepherd  filmed his previous Rig Rundown.  PG ’s John Bohlinger caught up with the blues-rocker before his recent sold-out show at Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium to hear some killer playing and see some untouchable—by anyone but Kenny and his tech—gear. The tour stop was supporting the December 2022 release of  Trouble Is … 25 , a r...

College internships can run the gamut. They can lead you into a career or dissuade you from pursuing one altogether. In 2004, while still attending the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, singer Rachael Price, bassist Bridget Kearney, guitarist  Mike “McDuck” Olson , and drummer Mike Calabrese joined forces to perform as what they dubbed a “free country band,” where they intended to...

“I feel like a lot of people, when they see me play, they think, ‘Oh, it's going to be super aggressive, and there's a lot of shades of that,” shares Jared James Nichols. “But I'm so obsessed with the tone, the feel of it…. Growing up listening to  Jeff Beck ,  Albert King , guys like that; the super feel stuff to me is where it's at.” That sentiment is overwhelmingly clear when hearing...

Since their debut,  Before the Sun Goes Down , in 2014,  Rob Ickes and Trey Hensley  have made a name for themselves as some of the hottest country and bluegrass players in the business. As individuals, their credits range from  Willie Nelson  to Earl Scruggs to Merle Haggard—and as a duo, they’ve toured and recorded with artists including  Tommy Emmanuel ,  Taj...

“You gotta remember, I wasn’t really shit until about a year-and-a-half ago,”  Bartees Strange  reminds the crowd at Nashville’s Basement East just before performing his song, “Hennessy.” “I was just in my basement playing guitar. And my wife was like, ‘Do the dishes ... Do something other than play guitar.’ Now all I do is play guitar again [ laughs ].” Strange (born Bartees Leon Cox, J...

When it comes to  jazz virtuoso Julian Lage , you’d be hard-pressed to find an electric guitarist who uses less gear. “Any time I’ve [used too much equipment], there’s an awkwardness where I’m still grappling with the fact that I play here,” he says, gesturing to his guitar, then gesturing to his amp, “but the sound comes out there.” He continues, “It sounds like a joke, but it’s been a strug...

We’ve featured loud rigs. We’ve stood strong in front of  Matt Pike’s octet of Oranges , been washed over with waves of volume from Angus Young’s nine Marshalls for  AC/DC’s “small gig setup”  in an arena, trembled from  J Mascis’ three plexi full stacks , and even withstood  Bonamassa’s barrage of seven amps  at the Ryman, but nothing prepared us or compared to the G...

KingTone’s The Duellist is currently Ariel Posen’s most-used pedal. One side of the dual drive (the Bluesbreaker voicing) is always on. But there’s another duality at play when Posen plugs in—the balance between songwriter and guitarist. “These days, I like listening to songs and the story and the total package,”  Posen told  PG  back in 2019, when talking about his solo debut,&nbsp...

Swarms of musicians and guitarists have found social media’s current 60-second attention span inspirational and fruitful. But what happens after that first minute? Well, for TikTok bass tycoon Blu DeTiger, you become a shooting star. However, her story isn’t that sudden or serendipitous. She’s been working towards the spotlight since she first picked up the bass to jam with her drummer brother, Re...

We revisited setups for  Anthrax ,  Megadeth ,  Guthrie Govan ,  Bonamassa , and others, introduced ourselves to  Cory Wong 's and  Wolf Van Halen 's gear, but who's guitarsenal got the most clicks? Brought to you by D’Addario XPND Pedalboard:  https://ddar.io/xpnd.rr Mentioned in this episode: Check out D'Addario's latest here: https://ddar.io/wykyk-rr

Inspired to by play guitar by his 6-stringing father,  Shawn Tubbs  emerged from the Christian-music scene. By his late teens, he was doing club and session gigs, and became part of The Violet Burning. In 1992, he played with  Stone Temple Pilots  on an episode of  MTV Unplugged , then got deeper in the high-profile Nashville session scene, and began touring with Carrie Un...

When you produce acts like Taylor Swift,  Fall Out Boy ,  Panic at the Disco , Weezer,  Green Day ,  Pink , Rayland Baxter,  Keith Urban , and Harry Connick Jr., it’s hard to find time for your own music. Yet in 2022, Butch Walker managed to release his 10th album,  Butch Walker as … Glenn —a surprising tribute to the ’70s piano-rock balladeers that were among the rul...

Trivium steadily raised its metal flag through the old-fashioned method—relentless touring. The band took any and all opening slots, priming crowds for Metallica, Iron Maiden,  Killswitch Engage , Machine Head,  DragonForce ,  Korn , and  Megadeth  before graduating to headliner status. That constant grind was fueled by 10 full-length releases that incorporate varying tint...

Rut busting and reconstructing has probably been happening since the discovery of fire and advent of the wheel. Guitarists confront it each time they pick up a new instrument to avoid predictable patterns and tones.  Premier Guitar  contributor (and recent Rig Rundown subject)  Pete Thorn  has addressed this by  suggesting several practices  to approach our beloved 6...

The Smashing Pumpkins ' first two albums,  Gish  and  Siamese Dream , were a huge part of the soundtrack for the early ’90s alternative rock revolution. Still sounding revolutionary all these years later, the band’s leader, Billy Corgan, recently brought the Smashing Pumpkins to Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena for the Spirits on Fire tour, on the heels of their 11th studio album,&nbsp...

If you were to ask my wife, “What two things sum up Chris?” … she’d likely respond with “grilled meats and heavy metal.” So, given the chance to interview the self-appointed (and unchallenged) founders of “Drive-Thru Metal” that solidified their crispy claim with classic cuts “Frying Pan,” “Sweet Beef,” and “Pair-a-Buns,” I ordered a full plate. The thing is, you don’t just interview guitarist Sla...

Pete Thorn has constructed a dream career on being heard, not seen.  He’s toured the world backing   Chris Cornell , Don Henley,  Melissa Etheridge , Jewel, and Japanese rock icon Tsuyoshi Nagabuchi (even performing at Mt. Fuji for over 100,000 fans on the biggest concert stage ever assembled in Japan). For a self-proclaimed “guitar nerd” ( check out Pete’s 2011 album under the same...

When Joe Robinson was learning to play in the remote village of Temagog, New South Wales, Australia, YouTube was his teacher. Then he discovered Tommy and Phil Emmanuel—Australia’s sibling 6-string slicers—and set out on a path that would lead him to Nashville, where he’s been a part of the city’s guitar cognoscenti for the past 13 years. At 31, Robinson’s fans include  Tommy Emmanuel  (...