“It’s a lot of fun. Growly. Nice. Like it. Love it. Awesome.”
Elle Puckett of Eisley and Maggie Rogers’ touring band calls upon a carefully selected collection of boutique stompboxes including the Avalanche Run, Spatial Delivery, and the occasional Altiods tin to craft the ambient tones for which she is known.
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Spotlights are loud. We caught up with bassist Sarah Quintero before the band’s performance at Mahall’s in Lakewood, OH, to shine a light on the deluge of distortion and fuzz pedals she uses to saturate the low frequencies which drive the trio’s sludgy shoegaze riffs straight into your skull.
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In SQÜRL’s music, the twisted scraping of industrial wreckage (to my ears the byproduct of musician/filmmaker Jim Jarmusch’s northeast Ohio upbringing) gives way to uneasy drones seemingly stuck in time like crestfallen Lake Erie tides fighting a losing battle against subzero temperatures before resolving at last into saturated but sparkling reverberated arpeggios. It’s what The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly might have sounded like if Ennio Morricone booked studio time with Steve Albini and hired Sunn O))) as session musicians...
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“[Pedals] inspire me to do things differently. It’s such a big part of what I do and how I create,” says Paramore guitarist Taylor York.
We caught up with the guitarist of Nashville pop-punk sensations Paramore to check out the gear he uses to bring to life the band’s stadium-sized hooks stuffed with enough ear candy to make every day feel like Halloween.
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“For live stuff, I stick with pedals that are going to be the most useful,” says Pallbearer’s Brett Campbell. As the frontman for the Arkansas sludgelords, Campbell’s ideal tone is much like his powerful vocal delivery, “heavy…warm, and clear.” To achieve his signature sound, Campbell needs gear that can keep up with his low A-E-A-D-F#-B tuning. “[The Hoof] is very controllable for a fuzz,” he says...
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Finding a guitar sound that sits well in the mix is vital for Queens of the Stone Age multi-instrumentalist Dean Fertita. He takes flight on the (now discontinued, sadly) Monarch overdrive, using its active Treble and Bass controls to cut and boost his way into the dense three-guitar conversation without speaking out of turn, so to speak...
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“That Bias knob is everything,” says Queens of the Stone Age bassist Michael Schuman, pointing at his Dirt Transmitter. Since discovering the Dirt Transmitter as a suitable stompbox replacement for the timeless sound of the Ampex 351 preamp, it has earned a place in his rig in with both QOTSA and his band Mini Mansions...
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The Evil has landed. We caught up with Queens of the Stone Age guitarist and lap steel player Troy Van Leeuwen to take a look at his multi-amp setup combining the best of modern signal routing with the immediacy of old-school, “pedals on the floor” plug-and-play rock and roll raunchiness...
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What a bunch of jerks. Goblin Cock totally stood us up and had their guitar techs do the interview, but those guys don’t know anything.
Seriously, what is Nick Reinhart thinking trying to put a fuzz on Lick Myheart’s pedalboard?
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We met up with the LA-based heavy psych rockers before their show at Cleveland’s Beachland Ballroom to learn more about the gear behind their lysergic, acid-drenched guitar sound...
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When CHON guitarist Erick Hansel wants to get dark, he steps on his Transmisser. “Whenever you hold a chord . . . this thing has this darkness about it. It’s, like, really awesome to hear it underlying, behind all the music,” he says...
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“The Warden compression pedal . . . is kinda like, crucial to our tone,” says CHON guitarist Mario Camarena.
We met up with Mario prior to CHON’s incredible sold-out performance at Cleveland’s legendary Agora Ballroom to learn how his pedalboard has leveled-up from having only three pedals, to the final boss-worthy behemoth it is today...
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We met up with Tera Melos / Big Walnuts Yonder guitar wrangler Nick Reinhart at Juan Alderete’s 5 Starr Sound Labs to dig into a few of his favorite settings on the Bit Commander, Transmisser, and Avalanche Run. As if having killer guitar chops weren’t enough, Reinhart has made a name for himself as a tone-tweaker conjuring expressive and bizarre sounds from any pedal he touches. Today is no different...
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“In the studio, you just grab whatever sounds good . . . like this reverb, it’s so simple, but so, so great,” says Cold War Kids guitarist Nathan Willet, pointing to his Ghost Echo...
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We caught up with the Circa Survive guitarist at the legendary Agora Theater in Cleveland, Ohio, where the band celebrated the 10th anniversary of their album On Letting Go to nerd out on gear. And nerd out we did...
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