Eli Lester couldn’t bear to see Two-Rock disappear, so he, alongside Mac Skinner, bought the company. He tells us how they resuscitated the brand and turned it into one of the hottest names in boutique amplification.
Two-Rock Amplifiers emerged into tube-amp consciousness like very few brands in past decades. Not only are their amps regularly tagged “best” by countless players and influencers, but even those decrying the lofty price tags admit their impossibly clear tones and soulful dynamics. That’s how Two-Rock co-owner and CEO Eli Lester wants it. Preferring to let others do the talking, he stays focused on the brand’s mission with an intense tonal obsession, resilience, and refusal to compromise.
Eli Lester and friends
Two-Rock’s journey hasn’t been without turbulence, however. Co-founder, Bill Krinard and his partner had sold the brand to Premier Builders Guild in 2010, and by 2016 it was teetering on collapse. That’s when Lester, already a long-time Two-Rock devotee, alongside his partner Mac Skinner, took a leap of faith to rebuild it from the ground up.
“I was probably the biggest Two-Rock fan in the world,” he explains. “I was doing some R&D stuff with them back in the day, and it was my favorite amp company. I don’t have an answer for why I wanted to buy it. I just couldn't let it die.”
Two-Rock in hand, Lester’s vision was clear: Build the best tube amps possible and let the cards fall where they may. However, it wasn’t a total shot in the dark, as Lester had spent his life surrounded by amplifiers and playing with some of guitar’s genuine icons. The man knows guitar tone.
“It's all I’ve ever done,” he says, matter of factly. “I did guitar and amp repair in the back of shops since about 18. And I was buying old Bassmans when they were 300 bucks and modifying them. I was also a full-time player, blessed to tour with Robben Ford, play with B.B. King, a bunch of players.”
“We’re definitely inspired by his amps, and I’m honored that people put us in that same camp, but we don’t make Dumble clones.”
Nearly a decade after purchasing the company, Lester’s commitment is as potent as ever. From his California workshop, surrounded by a literal wall of vintage amps (including Danny Gatton’s personal 1963 Vibroverb), he balances the roles of CEO, designer, and player. Alongside Skinner and Two-Rock, he's steering the brand into the future with the same vision that he started with.
Now at the helm of one of the most in-demand amp companies, Lester’s reluctance to chase the spotlight is still obvious. But, generous with his time, he shared the story of Two-Rock’s rebirth, its place in the tube-amp world, and where he hopes to take it next.
Desperate to keep the brand afloat, Lester and co-owner Mac Skinner (right) bought Two-Rock together in 2016 and began rebuilding the company.
What was it like buying a struggling amp brand? Were you confident you could turn Two-Rock around?
Well, Mac knew how to run the company because he’d been running operations since 2004, and we knew how to build amps and I was the player. But it was kind of, “I hope we don't lose too much money here.” [Laughs]
We literally started all over. We threw away chassis, transformers, and all the old inventory. We said, “We don’t even want to make any of these models,” and started from ground zero.
Why buy a company when you want to throw most of it away?
It was my favorite amp company. I was so emotional about it, so connected to it, and still believed they were the best amps I’d ever played. And Mac and I were both really aligned and wanted to see if we could revive it. It was just something I was really passionate about keeping alive.
You’ve found a lot of success since then. Are you still able to stay hands-on with everything?
It’s still a pretty small company. We have about 25 employees between the amp factory and the cabinet shop. I’m the CEO so I do amp design, voice every amp, and work with artist amps. I also do the sales and marketing. Mac is the COO and runs operations, part procurement, what’s being used, what models we’re making, how they’re being built, and deals with my OCD.
We also brought back Bill Krinard, the original designer and founder, to help with design work. It’s a collaborative group, going back and forth, bouncing ideas off each other.
The Two-Rock Silver Sterling Signature: a fine example of Lester’s careful, uncompromising aesthetic vision for his amplifiers.
Two-Rock is often compared to Dumble. Do you think that’s an accurate comparison?
We’re definitely inspired by his amps, and I’m honored that people put us in that same camp, but we don’t make Dumble clones. I get asked to do it quite often, and I don’t, out of respect. Drew [Berlin] and Matt [Swanson] [co-owners of Dumble] are friends of mine. I got to know Alexander via email before he passed away and was invited to the funeral. He’s one of my biggest inspirations in the world, one of my heroes.
Sonically and circuit-wise, we have models that are obviously inspired by them, especially aesthetically. But we’ve been able to carve our own voice. I’m equally inspired by Leo Fender and kind of morph the two things together to make our amps.
Leo Fender’s influence is apparent, especially with the Vintage Deluxe. What is it about vintage American amplifiers that attracts you?
Besides the fact that all my favorite players have played most of those amps, if I have a black-panel Fender and I take it to a gig, plug it in, put everything on noon, I’m good to go. Plus, those amps have a bit of artifacts and schmutz in the sound. They’re not too sterile, clean, or hi-fi sounding. They have some character to them.
That’s what I was trying to capture with the Vintage Deluxe. You take an amp, plug it in, turn everything to noon, and it sounds and feels great.
In my opinion, a lot of the Dumble clones or Dumble-inspired amps are sometimes too sterile. They don’t have enough character. So, I pull some of that from the Fender side.
In early 2024, Two-Rock announced they had acquired amp company Divided by 13. Their amplifiers, like this AMW 39, are now built in Lester’s northern California workshop.
A lot of your amps follow a long Two-Rock lineage. Would you ever branch into something like a plexi-style or high-gain design?
I love playing, and I have a JTM45 and a ’63 Bluesbreaker behind me. I still love playing those amps, but trying to have a cohesive product line where everything fits together is definitely a main goal of ours.
That’s a good transition with our Divided by 13 acquisition. A lot of the reason for buying it was, every time we’ve tried to do an EL84, EL34, or Marshall-inspired amp, people go, “That’s not what Two-Rock does. They're trying to be something they're not.” That was always a problem.
Fred [Taccone, founder of Divided by 13] became a friend of mine. When he mentioned he wanted to get out of the business, I thought, “This gives me the outlet to do those kinds of amps without cannibalizing and diluting the Two-Rock thing.” It’s its own thing, and Two-Rock is its own thing, too. They don’t compete with each other at all.
You brought Divided by 13 in-house with Two-Rock, and the same team builds both amps. Why not use the opportunity to grow and gain market share?
Mac and I are both very aligned that we want to keep Two-Rock a small company. Large retailers wanted to carry Two-Rock for many years, but I just don’t think it fits with what we do. It’s a great financial move, and they’re great, but I still want to be able to touch every amp and make sure it’s built exactly the way it should be. I don’t ever want to lose that quality. With other companies, we’ve seen what happens when people try to blow it up too big.
A shot from Lester’s humble workbench. He could expand Two-Rock and Divided by 13, but he’d rather stay small and hands-on with each and every amp they build.
Two-Rock Amps definitely do things your own way. They’re all-tube, many of them are 100 watts, and they use a cascading gain-stage design that can take a while to get used to. But it all works somehow.
I’m a clean-headroom guy. My goal is to make the biggest, most three-dimensional, clean amplifier you can. Back in 2016, the small amp thing was really popular, but we started building 100-watt amps because that’s what I love to play. Everyone thought Mac and I were absolutely crazy.
But we use that wattage for bandwidth, not sheer volume. You can use [our amps] at bedroom volumes. I put a lot of work, as well as my team, into it. We have a very usable master volume and a proprietary transformer. That’s why you see people playing our 100-watt Classic Reverb Signatures and Bloomfield Drives in small venues.
And our amps do have a lot of tone options, but the controls are laid out the way you use them. We’re not doing a bunch of crazy switching. It makes sense, at least in my brain.
Two-Rock players like John Mayer, Matt Schofield, Joey Landreth, and Ariel Posen are all known for their soulful playing and beautiful tones. Eric Johnson is even playing your amps. Why do you think they all gravitate toward Two-Rock?
You get out of an amp what you put into it, that extra little five percent to 10 percent. Eric, Joey, Ariel, Josh [Smith], Doyle Bramhall [II], and Ben Harper are all looking for that extra five percent to 10 percent. We can tweak the amp and get it to where they want it, but they pull that stuff out of them.
We’re blessed to have the artist roster we have, and it’s 100 percent organic. We don’t do artist endorsements. All our artists pay for the amps. It’s just because they love them. We’re so blessed to have that; I can’t even tell you.
YouTube
Watch Rhett Schull’s now-infamous video on why his Classic Reverb Signature changed his mind on Two-Rock amps.
You don’t have a paid artist roster, and you don’t put out a ton of video content. On top of that, a lot of people claim tube amps are dead. Still, you’re one of the most talked about brands in the industry. How did you make that happen?
It was extremely organic. There was no marketing plan. I was flying all over the country with the Classic Reverb Signature, going to dealers and artists, saying, “This is what the new amps are going to sound like.” It’s a crazy business model that I wouldn’t recommend to anyone, but it forced us to build the best amp we could.
And I think the fact that I’m a player first helped. I’m still obsessed. As the market has gone away from vacuum tubes, I’ve gone backward. My rebuttal is, “We’re just going to make them even more badass! We’re going to make them more high-end and tweak the components even more!” I think a lot of the players we have gravitate towards that.
Guitarist/YouTube influencer Rhett Schull recently released a video on the Classic Reverb titled, “The Best Guitar Amp I’ve Ever Owned.” That’s a bold statement, especially from someone who makes a living in the industry. What’s it like when players drop words like “best” to describe your work?
It’s funny, but Rhett was a Two-Rock critic for a long time because he never played them. He was saying, “These are overpriced. I played these other ones, and they’re just as good.” Then he got a chance, tried one, and said, “Okay, I get it. This isn’t like anything else. This is a different thing.” We’re so blessed to have guys like that who are brand ambassadors that carry the torch for us.
But I don’t ever sit here and say our stuff is the best. Actually, guys go, “I have a black-panel Deluxe Reverb and a plexi. What [Two-Rock] should I get?” I’m always saying, “Dude, you’re good. What else do you need?!” I’m the worst self-promoter in the world. [laughs]
You guys have defied the odds so far, but where do you see the tube-amp market going in the future? Will people still be playing Two-Rocks?
I wake up in cold sweats about it every single night. Just getting tubes is hard, and for a long time, people wanted quantity over quality. Now, at least for my generation, it’s like, “No, I just want one or two really nice amps that sound good, play good, and feel good.” So there's a nostalgia and a vibe with it that I don’t see going anywhere. There’s too much love for it.
With that in mind, where do you want to take Two-Rock in the next 10 years?
Sustainability is a big thing. This is a very cyclical business. I’ve been in it my whole life. I’ve seen things go up, seen things go down. People, amps, and guitars are trendy and cool, but then they fall off. You try to reach too far, and then it doesn’t work anymore. So I think it’s just staying steady, keeping course, and sustaining what we have. We just want to build really good guitar amplifiers, work with cool artists, and keep going.
It seems to be working. Everybody is talking about Two-Rock right now.
Thank you. I’m very uncomfortable with praise like that. That’s not my thing. I just like to build and play amps.
Fresh off a substantial break and a live acoustic recording from Paris’ infamous catacombs, hard-rock titans Queens of the Stone Age stormed back to life this spring with an American tour, including back-to-back nights in Boston at Fenway’s MGM Music Hall.
PG’s Chris Kies snuck onstage before soundcheck to meet with guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen and get an in-depth look at the guitars, amps, and effects he’s using this summer.
Van Leeuwen started working with Echopark Guitars luthier Gabriel Currie around 12 years ago, and this custom De Leon model is the product. It’s nothing fancy, says Van Leeuwen, with a walnut bolt-on neck and single-coil bridge/humbucker neck configuration, but it’s just made well. This one is tuned to C standard and strung with a custom set of Dunlop strings (.012–.058).
TVL’s RIY (Relic It Yourself)
TVL’s RIY (Relic It Yourself)
This is the first-ever prototype of the signature oxblood Jazzmaster that Van Leeuwen received from Fender’s Custom Shop, and it also carries his first attempt at writing out his own signature. (It got better.) Van Leeuwen relic’d it himself with hard playing and natural wear and tear. It’s got a Mastery bridge.
Double the Jazz
Double the Jazz
This is number two of two double-neck Jazzmasters produced by Paul Waller at Fender’s Custom Shop. The bottom 6-string neck is essentially the Troy Van Leeuwen Jazzmaster, while the top splits the difference between an Electric XII and a Telecaster, with a single-coil Tele pickup in the bridge and an offset pickup in the neck. A selector at the top toggles between top, bottom, or both signals, and basic controls for tone, volume, and pickup selection stay at the bottom.
Exploiter
This Echopark Explorer-style, nicknamed the “Exploiter,” came from a love of ’80s Ibanez and Hamer guitars. On its way back on a boat from Europe, it got exposed to seawater, which helped Van Leeuwen out with the relic’ing.
Van Leeuwen also packs a custom Echopark modeled after an old Teisco electric and a custom Fender 12-string Telecaster. Van Leeuwen hints that he’s been working with Squier to make an affordable version of the 12-string Tele.
A GMI PSA
Along with Currie and GMI’s Sean Romin, Van Leeuwen helped develop the GMI Public Address Systems 33F6. He describes it as having the power section of a Fender and the preamp section of a Marshall Jubilee. It’s a great pedal platform.
Van Leeuwen runs two 33F6s plus a Vox AC30. One 33F6 has his dry signal, and the AC30 carries the wet, while the second 33F6 carries wet lead signals. One cabinet is dedicated to the dry signal, while the other cab has one 12" speaker for the AC30 and two 12" speakers for the lead 33F6 signal. Three Austrian Audio condenser mics capture the signals.
Troy Van Leeuwen’s Board
All of Van Leeuwen’s pedals go through loops, with a RJM Mastermind PBC/6X and Mastermind GT/16 handling the switching, and most processing done through a Fractal FM3 and a pair of Eventide H9s. Van Leeuwen designed the boards, and his tech Cody helped build and program it.
Across the two boards, there’s a pair of both Electro-Harmonix Superegos and Way Huge Saffron Squeezes, plus Dunlop expression and volume pedals; EarthQuaker Devices Tentacle, Rainbow Machine, and Fuzz Master General; Way Huge Effect Pedal, Green Rhino, and Atreides; Echopark Echodriver; Ten Years Is A Decade; modified EHX Holiest Grail; and Dr. No Effects TVL Raven.
With a tone vocabulary that spans clean, smoky, grinding, and growling—plus a Two notes speaker simulator—the 25-watt Airwave is a ferociously fun, potentially formidable amp for any size stage or studio.
Needless to say, the splashy news about Supro’s Airwave is its onboard Two notes cab sim that expands the amp’s studio and live capabilities, not to mention a player’s creative options. Having Two notes cab simulations onboard is a cool thing. It takes many of the cab sim tailoring capabilities of, say, the Universal Audio OX or Boss’ WAZA Tube Expander, and makes them part of the Airwave’s amp architecture, which is no small victory for convenience.
- YouTube
But the 2x6V6 Airwave is a very cool stage and studio amp before you ever touch the cabinet simulation capabilities. At 25 watts, with tube-driven tremolo and spring reverb, it’s a cool alternative for players considering a tweed Deluxe, Deluxe Reverb, Princeton Reverb, or, for that matter, any of Supro’s excellent low- to mid-power combos. But while it’s not quite the blank slate a Deluxe Reverb is (the Airwave’s voice is generally more compressed, with lower headroom), if I had to record or play a show with the Airwave, a delay pedal, and a guitar, I’d do so confident that I had about 4-zillion awesome, tender-to-gnarly textures to work with.
Little Basher
The Airwave is a handsome amp, designed with lots of vintage Supro motifs, a wide aluminum control panel, rocker switches, and a control layout that are more than a little evocative of the Rolling Stones’ early Ampegs. There’s also a little Stones swagger in its voice. For while it can do a very convincing approximation of bright, almost-cleanish Princeton Reverb or Deluxe Reverb sounds, it’s basically grittier than either of those. Not in a way that confines the Airwave to garage-rock trash realms, but which hints at sepia-tone speaker sounds and a loud, rowdy vintage Supro or tweed Fender edge when you dig in with a flatpick. These savage-around-the-edges facets of the Airwave’s personality are tempered, perhaps, by the 12'' speaker, which adds thickening counterpoint to the barky midrange growl and enhances bass frequencies. It helps make the 3-band EQ section feel more sensitive and interactive, too.
The tone variations available between just the EQ and master volume/gain control interplay are plentiful. But all those sounds can be dramatically recast and even made electrifyingly aggressive with the onboard, switchable boost and drive, which are activated by the two rocker switches on the front panel or optional footswitches.
Alternate Realities
To interface with the Airwave’s Two notes capabilities, you download the Torpedo Remote app. But you can obtain excellent sounds without going deep, thanks in part to the amp’s onboard boost and drive switches. They feel like pedals perfectly selected to work with the amp and each other. The drive in particular is tough and snarling. And though your results may differ, to me the effects feel organically enmeshed in the fabric of the amp’s output. Both effects can be gritty, punchy, and explosive extensions of the amp, and together they can make it sound huge for 25 watts. The Torpedo Remote app calls up more-or-less photorealistic representations of several studios and live spaces (ancient temples included!), microphones, and cabinets. As in many other cab sim applications, you can readily and easily change microphones, slide microphone positions back and forth, switch between virtual cabinets of various sizes, as well as add preamps and reverbs with easy-to-use analog-style interfaces. If the wealth of sounds here isn’t already everything you need to get a great recorded sound, they get you off to a great start. What’s important, though, is how seamlessly they function with the whole range of the amp’s tones.
The Verdict
Although $1.5K might seem like a lot to pay for an Indonesia-built tube amp, it’s noteworthy that amps like the Fender ’65 Deluxe Reverb reissue are now pushing the $1.8K barrier. But the Airwave includes a useful and well-integrated Two notes Torpedo cab sim solution worth several hundred dollars by itself. Most impressively, Airwave excels in both the purely analog and digital cab sim realms without compromising capabilities in either. The amp has loads of personality and range. It’s up for a punky Kinks/Ramones rumble or Alvin Lee rippage, but just as eager to please as a clean-cut extra in a Jaguar-and-spring-reverb surf party flick or vintage soul session. If you’re the kind of artist inclined to do a little of all that in your recording and performing life, the Airwave satisfies on every count.
Vintage Fenders, Gibsons, and Gretsches get the job done for one of Nashville’s veteran studio players.
Trusted session guitarist Sol Philcox-Littlefield, known for his work with Luke Combs, Tim McGraw, Kelsea Ballerini, and Elle King, among many others, was at Nashville’s FrontStage Studios for some recording work recently, and he invited PG’s John Bohlinger to get a look at all the tools he uses to cut a stellar country record.
Philcox-Littlefield picked up this sweet 1967 Gibson ES-335 from Carter Vintage Guitars in Nashville as a treat when he got his end-of-year tax return.
Butcher’s Choice
This 1962 Gibson SG, which has been refinished and “butchered to some degree,” isn’t super comfortable, so it pushes Philcox-Littlefield into less usual, more creative playing.
Also in the studio stable are a Gretsch Chet Atkins Tennessean, another SG loaded with P-90s, a Gibson Les Paul Custom, a Jerry Jones baritone, a Silvertone semi-hollowbody, and a Fender Jazzmaster, Telecaster, and Stratocaster.
Headcount
Philcox-Littlefield’s studio setup includes a cabinet of tube-amp heads hooked up to a Kahayan amp switcher, including a Fender Bassman, Fender Bandmaster, Marshall JCM800, Guytron GT100 F/V, and a Matchless DC-30. Also on the shelf is a Roland Chorus Echo RE-501.
Sol Philcox-Littlefield’s Pedalboard
Philcox-Littlefield’s studio board is packed with goodies. Along with a TC Electronic PolyTune 2, Dunlop volume pedal, Barn3 OXU Three switch, and a Line 6 HX Effects, there’s a Dr. Scientist Bitquest, Analog Man King of Tone, Nordland ODR-C, Greer Lightspeed, Bogner Ecstasy, Way Huge Swollen Pickle, Bondi Effects Squish As, Eventide H90, Strymon El Capistan, Jackson Audio/Silvertone Twin Trem, Electro-Harmonix POG III, Boss CE-2, Boss DC-2, Strymon Deco, and Strymon Mobius.
Echopark Shark
TVL’s RIY (Relic It Yourself)
Double the Jazz
