The Tone Mob Podcast

Nashville bassist Alison Prestwood joins Blake for a deep-dive hang that zig-zags through the kind of career that only makes sense in hindsight: a near-miss with Waylon Jennings, a pivotal run with Rodney Crowell, getting the call to jump in with Patti Loveless on a few days’ notice, and why saying “no” at the wrong time can still be the right move. They talk shop on what it really takes to break...

Steve Reis from Does It Doom returns after four years and it’s one of those “wait… you did what?!” catch-up episodes. In the time since his last visit, Steve didn’t just add a couple new pedals to the shelf. He helped turn Woodwright Guitars into a full-on operation with a growing lineup, more dealers, and signature models tied to the heavy universe with names like Matt Pike, Brent Hinds, and Jimm...

This is the last episode of 2026!!! And just for that, I wanted to give you a special look at one of the other podcasts I do, Tape Spaghetti! What happens when one of the biggest bands in the world takes on its industry’s Death Star? In 1994, Pearl Jam was willing to find out. On this week’s Tape Spaghetti, Scott & Blake revisit the grunge-era showdown that pitted a group of scrappy rock idealists...

I caught up with a good chunk of The Allegheny High boys in central Oregon while they were out doing what they do best: making Charles Wesley Godwin sound like a freight train and giving folks goosebumps. We posted up near Bend for a hang that starts off with “are we about to get murdered?” energy… and quickly turns into a full-on origin story: the Beaver County scene that shaped them, jam nights...

On this episode of The Tone Mob Podcast, Corey Congilio returns to hang out and pull back the curtain on what it actually looks like to build a modern guitar career in 2025. We talk about trying to survive the algorithm game without losing your mind, why memes sometimes move the needle more than music, and how Corey is building his own tiny desk style live show right out of his studio – complete w...

This time I am hanging out with Mike Leon, current bassist for CKY, and Igorrr. (Former member of Soulfly, Havok and The Absence.) We dig into how a kid who was obsessed with CKY movies and weird heavy bands ended up actually joining his favorite band, and how that path wound through DIY world tours, insane lineups and a whole lot of van miles. Mike walks through his whole journey: discovering hea...

Guitarist, songwriter, studio owner, guitar designer, Brian May collaborator, and professional bad record deal survivor Arielle stops by the show this week. We get into how a shy, Queen-obsessed kid with doctor parents ended up moving to Hollywood at sixteen, landing at MI, meeting Brian May at a tiny bookstore, and eventually working with him on the West End production of We Will Rock You. From t...

Coheed and Cambria’s low-end wizard, Zach Cooper, jumps on the pod to talk about how “sure, I’ll come play bass on that” somehow turned into 14 years inside one of rock’s most intense bands. We get into the strange chain of events that took him from a random studio call to full-time member status, plus what it really feels like when your life is buses, stages, foreign cities and a rotating cast of...

Chad Jennings of Jennings Guitars returns to the pod after nearly seven years, and a lot has changed — finishes, neck shapes, and maybe even a few philosophical outlooks on life (and trucks). Blake and Chad catch up on what it means to keep building through hard seasons, why gloss finishes and roasted woods are calling his name, and how guitar design can be as much about patience as it is about pr...

Dave Hause returns to teach a masterclass in “being an artist without losing your shirt, or your soul”. We rewind to our last chat in February 2020, the night the NBA shut down while he was onstage, and how that chaos pushed him to build a label with his brother Tim. We get into career math that actually works: why an email list beats the algorithm, the “bullseye” model for fans, and how to releas...

This one’s for the lifers. Guthrie Trapp drops the polite industry brochure in the shredder and talks about building a real career in music. One you can live with and live on. We get into session ceilings, artist freedom, and why “be present to win” beats waiting for permission. Broadway bar marathons? Great for tips, terrible for souls. Social media mirages? Entertaining, not a business plan. Gut...

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...