The Tone Mob Podcast

This episode is sweat, wood, and wire. Tommy Emmanuel explains why he plays for the humans in the seats, not the guitar forum in the balcony. How youthful shred became musical conversation. How he built an audience by hand with posters and tiny ads until the rooms couldn’t hold it. He tells the story of the exec who laughed at “no market for instrumental music,” then the John Denver arena run that...

This week on the podcast I'm talking to Ryan Lynn of Eastide Guitar Repair, Hank Failing of Hank's Music Exchange, and Brad Boynton of Rhythm Traders. All of these exceptional musical entrepreneurs have com together under one collective roof here in Portland, OR to form a one of a kind independent Music Mall. I sat down in their basement to get the story of how they came together and how they see...

Blake sits down with Kyle Wolfe of Moon Guitars to chart the journey from teenage Van Halen brain-melt to full-tilt luthier madness. Kyle gets “voluntold” into his cousin’s repair shop, learns the craft one fret polish at a time, and discovers that carving his first Tele body flips the big red switch that shuts up the brain gremlins. We get into launching Moon in 2018, ditching repair work, and th...

Beetronics didn’t just buzz onto the scene—they showed up in beekeeper suits and rewired how pedal brands think about vibe. In this episode, Filipe Pampuri tells the whole wild arc: teenage studio raids in São Paulo, building a home studio so serious they moved mom out of her bedroom, hopping to L.A. to mix at NRG with Jay Baumgardner, mastering at Sterling Sound, touring alongside Papa Roach and...

Ricky Sutton of Arcana Pickups rolls in to talk metal, hand-wound voodoo, and why the word “influencer” sounds like something you catch at a gas-station bathroom. He grew up in rural Tennessee, moved to Portland, and in 2016 decided metal deserved its own pickup company. Now he winds coils that make your amp behave like a caffeinated raccoon and dresses his guitars like they’re headed to war. We g...

Metal YouTuber and fellow Oregonian Taylor Danley shows up with riffs, opinions, and a tube-amp habit that could brown out a neighborhood. We trace the path from Elvis ukulele kid to extreme-metal lifer, then get into the real fight: cranked amps vs. modeling. We make the case for the Boss Tube Amp Expander (turn it up, keep your lease), why an Axe-Fx is the smartest carry-on, and how millimeters...

Mojotone has been “that place that has everything” for decades—but how did a parts house become an OEM powerhouse? Blake talks with Mojotone’s Andy Turner and Michael McWhorter about the wild ride from surplus pallets and a borrowed warehouse to building cabinets and amps for the biggest names in guitar. We dig into the early Mojotone years, why turning on an old 1-800 number suddenly flooded them...

Some kids take apart toys. Jay Sasseen popped the backplate on a red Squier and never looked back. That curiosity turned into Parottdice Guitars, a Multnomah Village spotwhere weird gear and rad people hang out. We talk about the "gear flipping hustle" that became a real-deal guitar shop with a simple creed that actually works: fix things well, price things fair, remember names. Then we go treasur...

Matt Parker plays bass like a guy who read the manual and then set it on fire for warmth. We talk the strange magic of the Bass VI: why the new Squier Classic Vibe fixes the old headaches, and which mods turn wobble into weapon. Matt rolls through rigs like a responsible maniac: Ashdown heads into a 6x10 for moving air, the LB-30 with built-in load for civilised neighbors, and a Valeton GP-200 LT...

Chris Vincent (a.k.a. DJLavalamp) joins the podcast to tell the story of how a punk kid with a busted guitar wound up building some of the most coveted point-to-point, vintage style guitar pedals on the planet. We get into the weird alchemy of germanium transistors (spoiler: they melt if you look at them sideways), scavenging tubes out of dead reel-to-reels, and why boutique pedals sometimes feel...

This week we’re dusting off a true gem from the Tone Mob archives! My 2019 conversation with Mike Mitchell of The Kingsmen. Recorded live in a Portland cigar bar, this one dives into the chaotic birth of garage rock and the most famous three chords in history: Louie Louie. Mike tells the story of how the band cut the track in a one-hour, $36 recording session — and then somehow wound up under FBI...

Hold on to your hats folks! Morgoth Beatz is back, and yet again, he's got a whole lot more than just a cool name. After a couple of years off, the man behind Seven Hours After Violet talks about going from studio wizardry to touring the globe with the likes of Korn, Slipknot, and Avenged Sevenfold. What started as a small project with Shavo from System of a Down has exploded into one of metal's n...

What do world-class pizza and handbuilt guitars have in common? More than you'd think! On this episode of The Tone Mob Podcast, Blake sits down with Ian Galbraith, owner of Carlson Block—an incredible pizzeria tucked in the tiny town of Wilkeson, Washington. Ian shares the story of how he left photography behind to restore a 1910 building, build a life in a town of 500, and create pizza that peopl...

Andrew Patrick of The Carolyn joins Blake to talk tone, songwriting, and the joys (and occasional heartbreak) of Les Pauls that refuse to stay in tune. They get into the band’s humble beginnings, Andrew’s early love for whiny punk-pop, and why their latest record Pyramid Scheme of Grief nearly didn’t sound the way it was supposed to (spoiler: the Kemper got benched). Also covered: • The Milkman Am...

Nate Wood of Stahman Guitars joins Blake to talk about guitars, burnout, mindset, surviving the hustle, and why building your dream job might accidentally turn into a nightmare if you’re not careful. It’s part Lutherie, part therapy, part field guide to doing creative work without losing your mind. They get into everything from learning piano in Utah, to falling in love with Floyd Rose setups, to...

What do Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean, Line 6's Spider amps, and some of the wildest custom guitars on earth have in common? Rich Renken. In this episode, Rich walks Blake through decades in the gear trenches—starting as a bassist in church bands, engineering records with 90s rock royalty, helping invent products that changed the amp game, and now running the show at James Tyler Guitars. He tells...

Matt Hoopes is back on the show! Blake and Matt catch up on all things Relient K—from packed DIY shows at Brown’s Diner to opening for Avril Lavigne and Simple Plan. They dive into what it means to be a touring musician as a grown-up, the joys of building a “new boat” for the band, and why some of the most meaningful shows don’t happen on giant festival stages. They also nerd out on pedal design,...

What happens when a guitar wizard stumbles face-first into Hollywood? JD Simo is back, and this time he’s not just laying down licks. He’s coaching movie stars, babysitting vintage synths, and fixing million-dollar screwups the prop department didn’t even notice. He walks us through how a phone call from producer Dave Cobb turned into a full-blown creative rescue mission on two major films: the El...

Way back in the sepia-toned past of podcasting (circa 2016), I sat down with Joel Korte of Chase Bliss Audio — before the blinking lights took over the world and before I fully understood how microphones work. Can you believe that this episode is almost a decade old? What a wild ride it's been! This episode has it all: – Engineering nerdery – Emotional whiplash – Mild Midwestern awkwardness – And...

Jay Leonard J turned 40 and decided to do everything all at once. Theater? Check. NAMM emcee? Check. Launching a new Yamaha Pacifica? Sure, why not. Recording a full-length album in the middle of a life tornado? Of course. In this episode, Blake catches up with his longtime pal and one of the internet’s finest tone freaks to talk about the wildest year of Jay’s life. It involves getting choked ons...

From anonymous attic guitars to Travis Tritt’s guest room, Dillon Weldon’s story is a country song in the making. Blake sits down with the host of The Drifting Cowboy Podcast to talk about how a kid with no industry connections, a busted Taylor, and a Johnny Paycheck cassette somehow wound up at the heart of Nashville's old-school revival. They cover everything: going viral on TikTok (by accident)...

In this episode, Blake sits down with legendary singer-songwriter Mary Gauthier for a deep, honest, and surprisingly gear-heavy chat. Mary didn’t pick up songwriting seriously until her mid-thirties—after years as a Boston-based chef, restaurant owner, and, as she puts it, a total mess. But once she got sober and started hitting open mics, everything changed. They talk about her early love for Tay...

This week on The Tone Mob, Blake hangs with bassist Zephyr Avalon—a man whose musical journey started with jazz camp and ended up on stadium stages... with a few detours through punk bands, upright bass trauma, and a destroyed childhood guitar along the way. They cover Zephyr’s early years surrounded by classical music, gigging through college, touring with Haley Reinhart, and stumbling into the r...

Blake is joined once again by Nick Diener—founder of Oneder Effects and guitarist/vocalist for The Swellers—for a wide-ranging chat that hits everything from vintage SGs and Freebird lore to dad life, Discord burnout, and the existential dread of messy workspaces. Nick shares stories of playing Gary Rossington’s actual guitars, visiting Ocean Way Studios in Nashville, building pedals in cluttered...

In this episode of The Tone Mob Podcast, Blake Wyland is joined by Amico Demuzio—pedal steel guitarist and multi-instrumentalist for Charles Wesley Godwin’s band. They dive into Amico’s unexpected journey from welding school dropout to full-time touring musician, fueled by a love for lap steel, vintage Peavey amps, and weird-sounding pedals. If you’re a gearhead, there’s plenty to sink your teeth...