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Rig Rundown: As Cities Burn's Cody Bonnette

The founding guitarist shows how he breaks the post-hardcore mold with single-coils, old-school amps, and extreme stereo effects.

As Cities Burn founding guitarist (and occasional frontman) Cody Bonnette opens up his home to PGā€™s Perry Bean (a longtime friend) to talk through and demo the everyman gear that energizes his bandā€™s dynamic post-hardcore sound that can go from moody alt-rock to intense, swaggering hardcore pandemonium.

ā€œButterscotchā€ (named by Perry Bean) is Codyā€™s birth-year guitarā€”a 1983 Fender American Strat. This one gets used on softer songs when Cody sings tracks from either Come Now Sleep or Hell or High Water. Tunings vary from C# standard and Eb standard.

Codyā€™s main love is this 2004 Fender American Standard Telecaster. The only change heā€™s done to it (other than the stage wear) is swapping the stock neck pickup for a Seymour Duncan Five-Two Tele model. He did this because it rolls off the EQ where the original one seemed too bassy and too shrill in extreme settings.

His ā€œnewestā€ guitar is this 1979 Peavey T-60 that he bought for $350. It sees some stage and studio time because of its flexibility. Backing off the tone control a bit turns the neck single-coil into a full humbucker. Additionally, it has a phase switch to provide some funkier Strat-like settings.

To fill venues with a blanket of coalescing tones, Bonnette goes with a stereo-amp attack. This tweed combo started life as a Fender Blues DeVille 410 reissue. Touring life took a toll on it, so Cody had a Nashville friend at Black Tape Amplifiers overhaul the components and simplify its circuitry that mimics a ā€™60s Fender.

Here is the second part to Codyā€™s amp equationā€”a mid-ā€™60s blackface Fender Bassman that runs through a 2x12 cabinet.

Codyā€™s stomp station is filled to the gills with goodies including an Electro-Harmonix 720 Stereo Looper, Dr. Scientist BitQuest, ISP Decimator II, Walrus Audio Warhorn, Classic Audio Effects Passive Volume Roller G2, Roland RE-20 Space Echo, Walrus Audio Julia, 1981 Inventions DRV, and an EHX Micro POG. A Radial BigShot ABY switcher controls the amps while the TC Electronic PolyTune keeps everything in check.


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