Facing a mandatory shelter-in-place ordinance to limit the spread of COVID-19, PG enacted a hybrid approach to filming and producing Rig Rundowns. This is the 25th video in that format.
In 15 years since graduating from Berklee, Angie Swan has proven no stage is too big, and no star too bright, to play guitar alongside. She has worked onstage and in the studio with Cirque du Soleil (the Amaluna production), Fifth Harmony, CeeLo Green, will.i.am (Black Eyed Peas), Macy Gray, Adam Lambert (Queen), Nicole Scherzinger (the Pussycat Dolls), and Boney James, and even backed up Oscar-nominated actor Jeremy Renner in a series of ads for Jeep. Swan also just performed with En Vogue at the 2020 Billboard Music Awards.
In 2018, she landed her current high-profile gig playing for former Talking Heads ringmaster David Byrne, and hit the road to support his album, American Utopia. The whirlwind tour hit 26 countries in less than a year. And while 2019 saw fewer passport pages being filled, the challenges didn’t stop. For the fall of last year, Byrne and his band of 11 musicians adapted the show for a Broadway run at the Hudson Theatre. That production is comprised of songs from American Utopia, Byrne’s other solo releases, and heavy hitters from the Talking Heads catalog.
Just before the release of HBO’s Spike Lee-directed American Utopia concert film, which is now viewable, Swan virtually welcomed PG’s Chris Kies into her NYC apartment. In this Rig Rundown, the Milwaukee native and upbeat musician opens up about choosing gear based on eye-appeal for Broadway audiences, becoming a humbucker devotee, and how forming friendships led to great gear and cool gigs. She even gives us a peek at what her next pedalboard might have on it.
Years ago, former Saturday Night Live guitarist (and Rig Rundown vet) Jared Scharff introduced Angie to luthier Dennis Fano at Fano’s NAMM booth. From the time she met Dennis until the time she was in the market for a new instrument, Fano had sold his namesake company and regrouped with a new brand: Novo Guitars, in Nashville. Some of the crucial specs she requested from Dennis on the above Serus J were Lollar Firebird pickups (she prefers humbuckers over single-coils, but feels these give her the best of both worlds), a contoured, lighter body for the long, nonstop American Utopia shows, and a black-and-grey color scheme that fit best with the suits that David Bryne and the musicians wear onstage. The guitar shipped with a chrome pickguard—like the portion under the control knobs—but stage management/production said it reflected lightning and colors too much. All of her guitars take D’Addario NYXL .010–.046 strings and are in standard tuning. (Although “I Dance Like This,” from the American Utopia album, is in drop D.) Her Knaggs Kenai sometimes takes a set of NYXL .10s, which have heavier bottoms.
Her gig with pop-rock girl-group Fifth Harmony required one pragmatic, all-around workhorse, and this Knaggs Kenai earned the role. The matte black finish makes it perfect for all stages (and lights), it’s a lightweight (for an LP-style guitar), and the Seymour Duncan Seth Lover SH-55 PAFs are coil-tapped, offering serviceable humbucker and split-coil tones. (Clearly this photo isn’t taken onstage or inside a Broadway theatre. It’s Angie and her Kenai inside Joshua Tree National Park, nestled in southern California.)
Here is Angie with her three go-to instruments during the 2018 American Utopia tour with David Byrne: a Novo Serus J, her Knaggs Severn, and her Knaggs Kenai.
Another NAMM-sparked friendship, another guitar.... This time Swan ran into the jovial Doug Kauer while wandering the halls of the Anaheim Convention Center. The two hit it off (one of her mottos is: “if you can hang with someone, you can work with someone”), and she needed to fill a void in her guitarsenal with something cooking with P-90s. She ended up landing this Kauer Starliner Express with Wolfetone MeanP90s.
Musicians Institute grad and eclectic guitarist Rick Torres (Supreme Beings of Leisure, the English Beat, Bitter:Sweet, the Smart Set) was a fixture at L.A.’s Kibitz Room’s (attached to Canter’s Deli) Tuesday night jams. Angie and Rick started talking gear, and she found out that the he builds guitars from random parts off other instruments. At one of the jams she attended, he brought this classy, Bentley-looking partscaster. She quickly bonded with it, and he sold the guitar to her for a couple hundred bucks. She loves its unique sound and ballroom swag, but admits it weighs a ton. Sonically, Angie says it works best for smooth jazz gigs, like supporting Boney James and Cirque du Soleil. Torres calls this one the Rickencaster, because of the mash-up of the T-style body and the toaster-y pickups and Ricky truss-rod cover (see next slide). And, well, Rick’s his first name, too.
The Rickencaster headstock incorporates the Tele silhouette, the Fireglo truss-rod cover and logo, and the name of its creator.
For her NYC apartment (and to keep her neighbors happy), Swan plugs into a Supro 1622RT Tremo-Verb 1x10 combo.
And because of the dynamic, nonstop, marathon nature of the Broadway show, Angie relies on this Kemper Profiler that is programmed with all her amp and effects patches. All her changes are made via MIDI.
We caught Angie in the middle of a pedalboard build for solo work, and this is where she’s at so far: (top left) EarthQuaker Devices Spatial Delivery, MXR Analog Chorus, (bottom row) a trio of EQD weirdos (Avalanche Run, Grand Orbiter, and Hoof), a Boss OC-2 Octave, and an Xotic SL Drive. A D’Addario CT-20 Chromatic Tuner keeps her guitars in check, while the Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 Plus brings the stomps to life.
Here is an in-progress gigbag board that currently has a Boss DD-5 Digital Delay, EQD Arpanoid, Moog Minifooger MF Chorus, and MXR Super Badass Distortion.
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Chris Kies has degrees in Journalism and History from the University of Iowa and has been with PG dating back to his days as an intern in 2007. He's now the multimedia manager maintaining the website and social media accounts, coordinating Rig Rundown shoots (also hosting and/or filming them) and occasionally writing an artist feature. Other than that, he spends time with his pitbull and enjoys non-guitar-related hobbies. Follow him on Instagram & Twitter.
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