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In 2005, Jim Fairchild began working with Modest Mouse, a band he’d come to know while on tour with his own band, Grandaddy. Fairchild not only tours with the band but participated in the writing and recording of the band’s 2015 album, Strangers to Ourselves. Before their July 2016 gig in Nashville, Jim met with PG in his dressing room to take us through his Fender-heavy gear.
Jim Fairchild is a long-time Fender fan and still tours with the first good Strat he ever owned. This ’95 Strat boasts a matching headstock along with Lollar Vintage Blackface pickups. (He carries a 2013 American Standard Strat with the same Lollar pickups as a backup.)
To get a beefy humbucker tone, Fairchild plays his Epiphone Sheraton loaded with Seth Lover pickups.
For Tele spank, Fairchild goes with this new Fender American Elite Telecaster.
Jim tours with a Gretsch Electromatic with a center block and Bigsby to cover another end of the tonal spectrum.
Fairchild runs two stock Fender amps in his setup. The first combo is reissue silverface Twin.
Then he daisy-chains that amp to a stock Fender Blues DeVille, which always has a Greer Lightspeed overdrive in front of it.
Fairchild’s main board starts with a Seymour Duncan Shaper Shifter, and from there the signal hits a Danelectro Cool Cat Chorus, an Ibanez DE7, a Boss BD-2 Blues Driver, an MXR Uni-Vibe, an EarthQuaker Devices Dirt Transmitter, a Boss PS-5 Super Shifter, a Soursound Hundred Dollar Boost, an EarthQuaker Devices The Depths, an Electro-Harmonix Micro POG, a Mr. Black Eterna, a DigiTech HardWire RV-7 Stereo Reverb, a Greer Amps Fish Press, an old-school Pro Co RAT, and a Boss TU-3 tuner. A pair of MXR DC Bricks provides the power.
Fairchild runs his acoustic guitar through a three-pedal board that lives by his amps. This board hosts a Boss TU-3 tuner, an Electro-Harmonix Micro POG, and a Catalinbread SFT overdrive—all powered by an MXR Brick.
Click here, to win an EarthQuaker Devices' The Depths just like Jim's.
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John Bohlinger is a Nashville-based multi-instrumentalist best known for leading the band on NBC's Nashville Star, serving as music director for the CMT Awards and specials on PBS and GAC, and of course for his appearances in PG Rig Rundown, Review Demo, Axes & Artifacts, and What Bohlinger Plays videos.
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