Emma Ruth Rundle: My Naked-at-School Nightmare Is Showing up with No Effects

Los Angeles-native Rundle has five albums as leader to her credit, plus two new collaborations with Thou, as well as recordings with the Nocturnes, Red Sparowes, and Marriages.
The sonic sorceress grabs her baritone Fender and leaps into the maelstrom with sludgemasters Thou for a pair of heavy, effects-laden collaborations: May Our Chambers Be Full and The Helm of Sorrow.
It's virtually impossible to interview anyone nowadays and not have the pandemic come up. The only difference in the conversations is the degree to which it has affected the subject's life. Last March, Emma Ruth Rundle was touring solo—as in, sans backing band—in support of her 2018 release On Dark Horses, when the severity of the pandemic hit. Her last live show was on March 10, at the Fonda Theater in Los Angeles.
"That was a very strange show, because of what was happening," she recalls. "I was on tour with Cult of Luna and Intronaut. We started in February and were in 'tour-land,' so you're kind of in a bubble, where the outside world doesn't really exist and the escalation of the virus—that news wasn't impacting us. We weren't seeing it, but by the time we got to Los Angeles ...," she drifts off, the disbelief still palpable. "I'm from L.A. I was born and raised there, and driving into Hollywood, the streets were fucking empty."
"Showing up with an electric guitar and no effects is my version of the nightmare people have where they go to school with no clothes on."
Riding into an upscale ghost town sounds like an apocalyptic scenario—especially when your livelihood depends on audiences. But the adaptability of Rundle, who recorded during the lockdown and recently released an album and an EP, has been a hallmark of her career. The 37-year-old rose to prominence in the early 2000s with the Nocturnes, a folkgaze ensemble blending chamber-pop, goth, and post-rock elements into the genre. Albums like A Year of Spring (2009) and Aokigahara(2011) spotlighted her as one of the millennium's most inspired rock singer-songwriters. While in the Nocturnes, she branched out to work with post-rockers Red Sparowes, and in 2012 forged a more-straight-ahead rock collaboration under the Marriages moniker with Sparowes bassist Greg Burns. In between her musical partnerships, the prolific Rundle has also released four dazzling solo albums.
A common thread through all of her recordings is her passion for the craft of guitar playing. And her thirst for the new is reflected in that, too. With On Dark Horses, she first delved into baritone guitars—their shadowed tones magnifying Rundle's already somewhat foreboding, light-versus-dark aesthetic. From succinct to bombastic, weighty to crushing, and nuanced to vulnerable, her playing—particularly her baritone-derived soundscapes—toes the line between lilting and bludgeoning.
Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou - The Valley (Official Audio)
TIDBIT: Rundle's open baritone tuning differs from Thou's G# standard, but all four guitars on their collaborative album mesh thanks to smartly varying parts and the work of producer/engineer James Whitten.
Rundle's pair of recent recordings, late 2020's May Our Chambers Be Full and the new The Helm of Sorrow EP, mark yet another collaboration—this time with Louisiana sludge-metal lords Thou. Although Thou already had three guitar players, these releases are a perfect refuge for Rundle's low-tuned 6-strings. On Chambers'"Killing Floor," "Out of Existence," and "Magickal Cost," her playing weaves into Thou's majestic guitar tapestry as if it has always been there Meanwhile, her haunting, hypnotic vocals transcend the musical maelstrom with melodies that pierce Thou's musical armor, adding a welcome dimension to their muscular riffing. Check out Helm of Sorrow's cunning cover of the Cranberries' "Hollywood" for a slice of that sublime magic.
The Rundle/Thou union began with what she calls a long internet flirtation. "I've been such a massive fan," she admits. "I was listening to them a lot and tagging them on social media." Rundle, also a painter, would often listen to Thou while she worked. They finally met in 2018, backstage at the Northwest Terror Fest in Seattle. "It was so uncomfortable," she remembers. "There's a lot of them and they each have a very different flavor. Everyone's got a very different personality."
When it comes to conventional electrics, Rundle favors this Guild T-Bird or her Gibson SG Special. "I just don't think you can beat an SG," she says.
Photo by Debi Del Grande
Their musical partnership with Rundle kicked off when, in April 2019, Thou was invited to be the artists-in-residence at the Roadburn Festival in the Netherlands. Artists-in-residence perform a collaborative set with an artist of their choosing, so Thou asked Rundle. "That was so much fun," she explains. "I was like, 'Fuck yeah, I'm not going to miss this opportunity.' It was just such a dream come true to be asked to work with my favorite band. We had to come up with original material for a 40-minute set. That's how it started."
In preparation for Roadburn, they began meeting in New Orleans in February 2019. By then, Rundle and Thou guitarist Andy Gibbs had already been emailing ideas back and forth. "It started like a riff here, a riff there," she recalls. "KC [Stafford, guitar/vocals] came into the project with 'Monolith,' which they had written pretty much all the way through. We just fleshed it out." Rundle says the songwriting process was very involved and thinks maybe her Thou cohorts were a bit surprised by her level of commitment. "I think some of their other collaborations were just … expedient," she surmises, carefully choosing her words. "Whereas we were really crafting full songs from absolutely nothing."
"Because I play in a different tuning than everyone else, sometimes I couldn't play the same riffs as them—the voicing would be really strange."
Before heading off to Roadburn, Thou and Rundle embarked on a short tour to warm up for the festival. Rundle performed solo as an opener, and Thou would play their own set, and every few nights they would inject their collaborative performance. "It was like, if the final album is a sculpture that's realized, where you can see features and details, what we had by the time we got to Roadburn was just a lump of clay," she admits. "I recently heard the set from Roadburn, and I can tell I was totally making things up that just sounded like words. [laughs]. It evolved a lot more after we played that set."
A lot of Thou's mighty sound relies on the number of guitars playing the same down-tuned riff. In addition to Gibbs and Stafford, the band includes Matthew Thudium on guitar and Mitch Wells on bass, so fitting into that heavy alignment provided some challenges for Rundle. She says they made it work with the help of producer/engineer James Whitten, who she refers to as Thou's secret weapon. He recorded both May Our Chambers Be Full and The Helm of Sorrow at High Tower Music in New Orleans."
Emma Ruth Rundle's Gear
With 2018's On Dark Horses, Emma Ruth Rundle adopted the Fender Jaguar Special Baritone HH as her main instrument. "They don't make it anymore," she relates, "but it has humbuckers, which is the reason why I really love it."
Photo by Tim Bugbee/Tinnitus Photography
Guitars
- Two Fender Jaguar Special Baritone HHs
- Gibson SG Special
- Guild S-200 T-Bird
- Dunable Yeti
- Cordoba Luthier Series GK Pro
- Blueridge BR-143 Historic Series
Strings
- D'Addario EJ21 sets (standard-scale guitars)
- D'Addario EXL158 sets (baritones)
- D'Addario EJ46 sets (nylon strings)
- D'Addario EJ17 sets (steel-string acoustics)
Amps
- Roland JC-120
- Verellen 2x12 combo based on the Loucks head
Effects
- Korg Pitchblack tuner
- Electro-Harmonix Pitch Fork
- EarthQuaker Devices Arrows
- EarthQuaker Devices Palisades
- Keeley Loomer
- Electro-Harmonix Stereo Memory Man with Hazarai
- Line 6 M9
- Two Boss DD-6 Digital Delays
- Boss RV-5 Digital Reverb
- Red Panda Context
James is a genius with guitar tone and with finding a place for all of the guitars," Rundle says. "There is some mystery and mystique to his method. There's no way to have four guitars happening all the time and have it sound that good. I think he's doing some magic and picking and choosing. It was a surprise to hear what moments came out."
It's worth noting that Rundle plays in a different tuning than the rest of Thou, which further complicated how the guitars intermingled. The tuning on Rundle's baritone is G#–C#– G#–A#–C#–G#—an open tuning that lets her barre chords with a single index finger. Thou's tuning, according to Gibbs, is G# standard, just like standard tuning, except the lowest string is G#. "The process went like this," Rundle says. "There would be basic riffs. We would all learn them together, and that would form the basis of the song. But because I play in a different tuning than everyone else, sometimes I couldn't play the same riffs as them—the voicing would be really strange." In some cases, Rundle says it also just didn't make sense to have four guitars and a bass player playing the same drop-tuned riff together. So sometimes she would play other parts. "It made sense to have a little lead melody happening or a different chord voicing," she says. "That's how we made it work. There are times where I'm playing the same 'sort-of' riffs, but there are a lot of moments where it's either a finger-picked thing or a little lead line."
Emma Ruth Rundle Rig Rundown
Exclusively a fingerstylist, Rundle uses acrylic nails to pluck her primary guitar, a Fender Jaguar Special Baritone HH. "They don't make it anymore," she relates, "but it has humbuckers, which is the reason why I really love it. That specific model was what got me into playing baritone guitars."
Because the baritone is "pretty wonky" intonation-wise, Rundle also wields a Gibson SG Special, a Guild S-200 T-Bird (both in C# tuning), and a new Dunable Yeti that was custom built for her by Intronaut's Sacha Dunable. "With the Fender, you can't get the intonation right," she says. "It's just the nature of the scale length—and then I'm doing drop-tuning on a drop-tuned instrument! It's flawed in so many ways." [Editor's note: The Jaguar Special bari has a 27" scale, whereas "true" baritones are typically 28" or more in order to intonate more accurately across the fretboard.] Ultimately, she concludes, "I just don't think you can beat an SG." She says that instrument's fretboard reminds her of the classical guitars she learned to fingerpick on—and that she still uses to write and practice on. "To me, the SG is the perfect guitar."
In addition to the baritone, effects are crucial to Rundle's sound and style. "I consider my pedalboard an instrument that I wouldn't want to do any of this stuff without. It's like a palette of tones and effects that you know will work in any given situation. After a certain amount of time, you just know when something has to have a super-hot fuzz with an octave on it for it to cut through at the right moment and make sense. And if I have an EBow, I know it's always going to go with either a slide or a really slow delay."
For acoustic guitars, Rundle uses either a Cordoba GK Pro nylon-string or this Blueridge BR-143 Historic Series steel string.
Photo by Geert Breakers
Rundle says her fascination with effects and electric guitar playing happened in parallel. "I got a multi-effects pedal with my first guitar. I think showing up with an electric guitar and no effects is my version of the nightmare people have where they go to school with no clothes on," she laughs. "It's not a place I want to be, you know?"
Speaking of school, it was while working a 13-year stint at McCabe's Guitar Shop, a folk music center in Santa Monica, California, that she received her informal musical education. "We sold instruments, we had concerts, and we had lessons. A lot of the things that I've learned that have made their way into my playing just came from the people there—the teachers that would come down. Pete Steinberg is an amazing, award-winning finger picker, and he'd just be like, 'Come over here. I'm going to show you something.'" And on the rock side, she credits the inspiration of Jimi Hendrix, Billy Corgan, Kurt Cobain, Courtney Love, P.J. Harvey, and, especially, Nancy Wilson.
"I had this revelation when I learned about Heart. It blew my mind—just seeing a woman shred like that. I felt, when I was super young, that I didn't see myself reflected in guitar magazines or in rock music, necessarily. I'm stoked that we don't have the 'bikini-fashion-show-guitar-thing' anymore, you know what I mean?"
Live at Tilburg's Roadburn Festival in 2019, Emma Ruth Rundle and Thou work out the dynamics of their then-upcoming collaborative recordings in the furious "Ancestral Recall."
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A sample page from the author’s analog log.
Seasonal changes are tough on your acoustic. Here’s how you can take better care of your prized instrument.
As you read this, spring is in bloom in most of the US, or maybe it has been for some time. I’m timing this column specifically to ask acoustic guitarists, in this season of increasing humidity and comfortable conditions, to prepare for what’s coming. It’s never too soon, and time flies. Before you know it, we’ll be back to the maintenance phase and you might be blowing up the phones of your local guitar shops, luthiers, and techs. I’m here to encourage a decidedly old-school approach to preventative guitar maintenance, and yes, it starts now.
Why, you ask? Well, as the lead luthier at Acoustic Music Works, I can tell you that in my nearly 15 years in this position, this was the worst winter ever for preventable repairs on acoustic guitars. Fret sprout, bridge lifts, top sink, soundboard cracks, back cracks, loose binding, general malaise… These hit us very hard in the winter that spanned 2024 and 2025. Am I complaining? On the one hand, no. This is part of how we make our money. On the other hand, yes! Repair schedules related to dryness and humidity issues can stretch into weeks and even months, and nobody wants to be without their favorite instruments for that amount of time. With a little thoughtfulness, however, you might get through next winter (and every one thereafter) without hefty repair bills or time apart from your musical companion.
Our preparation is going to start with an unlikely but very important guitar accessory: the humble notebook. Plain, lined, grid, day planner… it doesn’t matter. We all need to actively participate in our instrument maintenance, and in my experience, fancy apps that track humidity via Bluetooth breed a kind of laziness, a feeling of safety that might prevent us from actually physically looking in on conditions. Better we keep an analog, well, log, so that we know where things stand, and I suggest checking in daily.
“This was the worst winter ever for preventable repairs on acoustic guitars.”
Track your relative humidity, both in the case and in the room where your instruments mostly reside, but also take notes on your action height, top deflection (StewMac has some great tips for measuring this) and anything related to playability that you believe you can observe empirically.
Dryness is the root cause of most guitar issues that manifest in the fall and winter months. Symptoms of dryness include sharp fret ends, falling action and dead frets, sunken top around the sound hole, and cracks and bridge lifts. With your trusty notebook, you’ll get a feel for the sensitivity level of your instrument, and that knowledge is power!
A few other basic implements will not only assist you in your observations, but may also satisfy your need to buy guitar-related things (at least for a minute). Getting quick and comfortable with a fret rocker is a great skill to have, and is invaluable in diagnosing buzzes due to high frets or frets that have come unseated due to dryness. A well-calibrated relief gauge might seem luxurious, but it can prevent you from making unnecessary or extreme truss rod adjustments. A string action gauge, or even a simple machinist’s rule or set of feeler gauges, will help you keep track of your action. Get a three-pack of hygrometers so you can average their readings, rather than depending on one.
Lest we forget: A guitar can not only be too dry, it can also be too wet. By beginning your maintenance diligence in the spring/summer, you’ll also be able to tell if your instrument is the victim of a too-humid environment. The signs of over-humidification are subtle: Your action may rise from a puffed-up top, and in extreme cases, glue joints could begin to fail. In my experience, an over-humidified guitar will suffer from dulled tone, almost like a sock in the sound hole. If you’re sensing a lack of clarity in your guitar all of a sudden, start with new strings. If it persists, it might be due to over-humidification, and you may want to introduce a desiccant to the case for a time. The more lightly built your guitar is, the more sensitive it will be to seasonal changes.
By getting into these habits early, you’ll be empowered by knowing your instrument more intimately. You’ll understand when and why changes in tone and playability might have occurred, and you’ll hopefully save on repair bills year-round. Feel free to reach out with any questions. Who knows? I might just send you a notebook with an AMW sticker on the cover!
This wonky Zim-Gar was one of many guitars sold by importer Gar-Zim Musical Instruments, operated by Larry Zimmerman and his wife.
The 1960s were strange days indeed for import guitars, like this cleaver-friendly Zim-Gar electric.
Recently I started sharing my work office with a true gem of a guy … one of the nicest fellas I’ve ever come across. If you’ve been following my column here, you might remember my other work mate Dylan, who is always telling me about new, fad-type things (like hot Honey guitars) and trying to convince me to use AI more. (What can I say, he’s a millennial.) But Steve, on the other hand, is about 10 years my senior and is a native New Yorker—Brooklyn actually, from the Canarsie neighborhood. Steve is a retired teacher and spent many years teaching in the Brownsville area of Brooklyn, and man, he has some amazing stories.
Mostly we talk about music and sports (he’s exiled here among us Philadelphia sports fans) and he’s just endlessly interesting to me. He has a huge appetite and can eat a whole pizza. When he talks, he sounds like one of the Ramones and he still has an apartment in Rockaway Beach. We both love Seinfeld and, like George Costanza, Steve knows where all the great bathrooms are across New York City. Since he’s been added to my circle (and is such a mensch), I decided I should work him into a column.
So here’s the connection: Back in the day there were many American importers, dealers, and wholesalers. A lot of them were based in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, but I only know of one guitar importer located in Brooklyn: Gar-Zim Musical Instruments. The company was run by Larry Zimmerman and his wife, and the couple had some success importing and selling Japanese guitars and drums. I used to see early Teisco imports with the Zim-Gar badge, which was the brand name of Gar-Zim. I’ve also seen Kawai guitars with the Zim-Gar label, but the Zimmerman’s seemed to sell cheaper and cheaper gear as the ’60s wore on, including the piece you see here.
“This build reminds me of the cutting boards I used to make in wood shop back in my high school days.”
The model name and factory origin of this guitar is a mystery to me, but this build reminds me of the cutting boards I used to make in wood shop back in my high school days. The guitar is just flat across the top and back, with absolutely no contouring or shaping. Its offset body is plywood with a thin veneer on the top and back. From a distance this guitar actually looks kind of nice, but up close you can see a rather crude and clunky instrument that offers little flexibility and playability. The non-adjustable bridge is off center, as is the tremolo. It was really hard to get this guitar playing well, but in the end it was worth it, because the pickups were the saving grace. Another example of gold-foils, these units sound strong and raw. The electronics consist of an on/off switch for each pickup and a volume and tone knob. The tuners are okay, and the headstock design is reminiscent of the Kay “dragon snout” shape of the mid to late ’60s, which is where I would place the birthdate of this one, probably circa 1966. Everything is just so goofy about this build—even the upper strap button is located on the back of the neck. It reminds me of that era when simple wood factories that were making furniture were tasked with building electric guitars, and they simply didn’t know what they were doing. So, you get oddities like this one.
Gar-Zim continued to sell guitars and other musical instruments through the 1970s and possibly into the ’80s. I once even saw a guitar with the label Lim-Gar, which is totally puzzling. I think there should’ve been a Stee-Gar designation for my new buddy Steve-o! Yes, good readers, with guitars and me, there are always just a few degrees of separation.
Dive into the ART Tube MP/C with PG contributor Tom Butwin. Experience how this classic tube-driven preamp and compressor can add warmth and clarity to your sound. From studio recordings to re-amping and live stage applications, this time-tested design packs a ton of features for an affordable price.
Art Tube Mp Project Series Tube Microphone/Instrument Preamp
Designed in Rochester NY and originally released in 1995, the Tube MP is celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2025.
The Tube MP/C is the most fully-featured member of the Tube MP family, designed for recording guitarists and bassists. It is a tube mic preamp and instrument DI with advanced features including an optical compressor/limiter and switchable line/instrument output levels for use as a re-amping device.
Guitarist Scott Metzger and his Lollar P-90-loaded Creston T-style onstage with LaMP, next to organist Ray Paczkowski.
The guitarist, who splits his time between the groove-driven jam band supergroup and Joe Russo’s Almost Dead, energizes the Tele vernacular on One of Us.
“Night after night playing next toDean Ween was really my foundation for learning what it means to be a lead guitarist, and how to do a gig, and the pacing of a gig, and a lot of things that I still consider really, really important lessons,” says guitarist Scott Metzger. He’s thinking back to his formative years in the small town of New Hope, Pennsylvania, about 40 miles north of Philadelphia and across the river from his hometown of Lambertville, New Jersey. It was there, on the intimate, low-ceilinged stage at eclectic musical outpost John & Peter’s, that the guitarist cut his teeth next to the Ween co-founder—real name Mickey Melchiondo—as a member of Chris Harford’s Band of Changes, which Metzger joined at just 17 years old.
“They treated me like a kid, man,” he continues. “They really put me through the paces. There was a lot of hazing, and there was some tough love on a lot of those nights.”
Metzger estimates he left it all on the John & Peter’s stage hundreds of times, forming an old-school style of musical apprenticeship that can be heard in his playing today, three decades later. In any of the improv-heavy settings where he tends to find himself—such as his collaborative trio, LaMP, with members of the Trey Anastasio Band, the transformative Grateful Dead tribute Joe Russo’s Almost Dead, or in freelance situations—Metzger takes the patient and complementary approach of someone playing the long game. He’s a supportive and colorful collaborator who, to make a baseball analogy, always seems to have a good read on the musical ball, equally adept as a finely attuned rhythm player or commanding lead voice. For that, he offers a lot of credit to those early days.
Guitarist Scott Metzger and his Lollar P-90-loaded Creston T-style onstage with LaMP, next to organist Ray Paczkowski.
Photo by Andrew Blackstein
“I kept my mouth shut and my eyes open,” Metzger explains, “and I learned what it takes to become a good, competent guitarist and what it means to have a distinct voice—Dean Ween has one of the most distinct lead guitar voices in rock ’n’ roll as far as I’m concerned. But not only that, also how to support a singer, and how to play a song, and when not to solo, which is just as important as knowing when to.”
Metzger remembers his early teen years, learning tunes by the Ramones—his first concert—and Jersey’s own Misfits, and getting turned ontoHendrix bootlegs and Boredoms records at New Hope’s Now and Then shop. Later, Melchiondo expanded his psychedelic worldview, hipping him to P-Funk— specificallyEddie Hazel’s guitar work—and theAllman Brothers.
Metzger at home in Brooklyn, surrounded by an inspiring array of gear and posters.
Photo by Andrew Blackstein
It wasn’t long until Metzger put all those early lessons to work on the road. At 19, he was playing with his experimental trio F-Hole at Princeton, New Jersey’s Small World coffee when Phish guitaristTrey Anastasio wandered in. “As soon as we get done playing,” Metzger recalls, “he makes a beeline to me and basically started interrogating me about who I was listening to and what I was into gear wise and what kind of guitarists I was into. What I didn't realize was that he was basically auditioning me in real time to be in his friend Tom Marshall's band, who writes all the lyrics for Phish and was putting together a band at the time.”
Metzger scored the gig with Marshall’s Amfibian, playing sold-out shows on the road and opening him up to a whole new musical world. “I wasn’t that familiar with Phish at all,” he points out. “But I knew I liked being up in front of all those people and being able to just play all night. I was really kind of a focal point of the band, and that was my introduction to what is now considered the jam band scene.”
Fast-forward to the present: Metzger is a formidable member of the jam scene. He’s led and collaborated on a host of projects, including WOLF!, with bassist Jon Shaw and drummer Taylor Floreth; the blazing country-swing trio Showdown Kids, with his wife, violinist Katie Jacoby, and guitarist Simon Kafka; and his resplendent, forward-thinking 2022 acoustic-focused solo record, Too Close to Reason. In 2013, he teamed up with his longtime pal drummer Joe Russo, along with guitarist Tom Hamilton Jr., bassist Dave Dreiwitz, and keyboardist Marco Benevento, in forming Joe Russo’s Almost Dead. Colloquially known as JRAD, the group, in a sea of reverence, treats the Grateful Dead’s songbook almost as if it’s an edition of the Real Book—the shorthand jazz-standards tome—cracking open the large catalog and infusing their own voices with every improv-heavy performance.
Scott Metzger’s Gear
Guitars
- Creston T-style
- Ronin Songbird
Amps
- Headstrong Verbrovibe 1x15
- Victoria 35210
Effects
- Bearfoot Putting Green Compressor
- Benson Germanium Fuzz
- Paul Cochrane Timmy overdrive
- Interstellar Audio Machines Octonaut Hyperdrive
- Analog Man-modded MXR Phase 90
- Ibanez Analog Delay
- Keeley 30ms Double Tracker
- Benson Delay
- Wilson Wah pedal
- Line 6 DL4
- Voodoo Lab power supply
Strings and Picks
- D’Addario NYXL .011s
- Dunlop Prime Tone 1.0 mm
Being a part of a Dead tribute act was never part of Metzger’s plan. In fact, he says he wasn’t all that familiar with the band’s catalog. “I wasn’t sure I was the right guy for the band,” he says. But with exploration and personal vocabulary so paramount in JRAD, Russo knew Metzger was the right guitarist for the job.
“You have to be willing to get in there and do your thing and make your mark unapologetically,” Metzger muses. “That's something that's made us stand out in a world of bands that are playing those songs.”
JRAD has developed a large, dedicated following, rising to the top of the Dead tribute scene. “The size of the audience that we have is mind blowing,” Metzger points out, “and the fact that the audiences are willing to go to the places musically with us that we take it, it almost feels like we're testing how much we can get away with a lot of the time.”
Metzger and LaMP bandmates Paczkowski and drummer Russ Lawton. “Those two guys are kind of celebrities up in Burlington,” he says, “so it's like doing a gig with the mayor or something.”
Photo by David Gray
These days, JRAD makes up about half of Metzger’s current gig commitments, and LaMP fills the other. The trio was formed one night in 2018 at Burlington, Vermont’s jam nexus Nectar’s, when the guitarist joined forces with keyboardist Ray Paczkowski and drummer Russ Lawton, both longtime members of Trey Anastasio’s solo band, who also work as the psych-funk duo Soul Monde. “Right off the bat, there was a chemistry that was going to work,” Metzger recalls. “Those two guys are kind of celebrities up in Burlington, so it’s like doing a gig with the mayor or something. The whole town came out to see us, the place was packed, and I think it was very clear to everybody there that night, including us, that it would be a crime not to do it again.”
LaMP builds on the long history of the organ-trio tradition, referencing ’60s ensembles helmed by Grant Green and George Benson, the Meters’ soulful funk, more modern jammers like Medeski, Martin & Wood—and most notably their late-night groove collabs with guitarist John Scofield—as well as thrill-seeking, forward-leaning groups like John Abercrombie’s Gateway Trio and Tony Williams’ Lifetime, all while embracing the spirit of rock ’n’ roll abandon. As unabashed and freewheeling as that might suggest, Metzger and company shoot for a tasteful sonic experience more than a barn-burning blast-off, and at the fore of the band’s sound is a shared improvisational language built upon close listening just as much as any influence. “The real thing that we’re focusing on,” Metzger shares, “is having a good feel, a group sound, and some catchy melodies. Those things are enough to carry the thing without having to worry about ripping some blazing solos every song.”
This year, LaMP released One of Us, the follow-up to their self-titled 2020 debut. It’s filled with live-off-the-floor energy, or as Metzger puts it, “fresh tension.” The mostly first and second takes heard on the record, with barely any overdubs, successfully capture the band’s collaborative heart, making One of Us a ferociously spirited listen from beginning to end. “I like records that are made really quickly on low budgets with the clock ticking,” Metzger conveys. “You can feel that a little bit on the record. It’s not too polished. It's like you can feel that it’s three guys in a room playing together.”
LaMP’s One of Uscaptures the band’s effervescence with a set of mostly live-off-the-floor first and second takes.
Throughout One of Us, Metzger showcases his deep fluency in the Telecaster vernacular. With his Creston T-style, a chambered all-black affair loaded with Lollar P-90s, he slings lyrical licks that offer nods to the masters of the form, all the way back to the first Tele virtuoso, Jimmy Bryant through aces Roy Buchanan, Danny Gatton, Jim Campilongo, and Steve Cropper’s deep pocket. (In JRAD, Metzger calls on a Ronin Songbird loaded with DeArmond gold-foils, but his vocab and approach remain much the same.)
Metzger’s take on the tradition is less virtuosic gunslinger than most of those maestros, instead favoring a more complementary approach with an ear toward supporting the group. To that end, he keeps his sound mostly on the cleaner end by reserving a load of potential sonic energy. “I crank the amp,” he says, pointing out he prefers to set his combo—either a Victoria 35210, a 2x10 Fender tweed Super copy, for LaMP, or a Headstrong Verbrovibe 1x15, a replica of a 1963 Fender Vibroverb, which he favors for JRAD—to 7 or 8 so it’s fully opened up. A self-described “minimalist pedal guy,” he keeps four punch-packing pedals—a Bearfoot Putting Green compressor, Benson Germanium Fuzz, Paul Cochrane Timmy, and an Interstellar Audio Machines Octonaut Hyperdrive—on at all times. As hairy as that may suggest, Metzger maintains clarity, he explains, by keeping his guitar volume set between just two and four. That means that when he wants, he’s just a crank of the volume knob away from a wide-open, full-throated sound.
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LaMP deliver the knotty mid-tempo groove of “Jasper’s World” from One of Us from a concert in fall 2024 at Boston’s Wilbur Theater.
His approach to pedals says much about Metzger’s playing style in general. There’s always a load of possibility on reserve, and you can sense it. He’s not one to frequently lay sonic waste with a technical assault, but, rather, a massive map of potential musical avenues is perpetually close at hand, with his ear in the driver’s seat.
Listen to Metzger in just about any situation, whether as a bandleader, bandmember, or just sitting in, and there’s an obvious musical set of ethics in place—and it’s probably been in effect since his early days at John & Peter’s. The responsibilities are something like work hard, support others, be ready to deliver at all times, and, maybe above all, be yourself.
“I was told in no uncertain terms,” he recalls, “that the important thing about being a musician was to find your own thing. You’ve got to stand on your own feet. The ultimate goal that we’re all still working on is to sing our own song with our own voice.”