
For Marcus King, sharing about his music comes with a powerful openness about his mental health struggles and substance abuse.
On his latest full-length, Mood Swings, the young guitarist recorded under the sage guidance of studio veteran Rick Rubin. Here, he reflects on his life’s tribulations, and displays a rare fluency and comfort in sharing about his mental health.
The guitarist, singer, and songwriter Marcus King began drinking heavily around age 15, in part because the sorts of venues he was playing in the Southeast considered Pabst Blue Ribbon to be fair pay. “I was like an alley cat,” he recalls via Zoom, describing how these clubs would leave a case of cheap lager out back for their precocious guitar slinger. “Other stuff,” King says, “got introduced a little later.”
Such war stories aren’t uncommon among musicians, especially rock ’n’ soul road warriors like King. But the good-natured 28-year-old isn’t smiling, or laughing, or inviting flattery. He isn’t reminiscing so much as taking inventory of past traumas. By the time he was 11, King shares, he’d started experiencing what he now recognizes as panic attacks; once, in an effort to soothe a nasty cough, he drank an entire bottle of Robitussin, which led to a hallucinatory episode that frightened him deeply, intensifying these bouts of anxiety. “I would just get worked up,” he says. “I’m still learning how to address those and recognize them.”
“I struggled with that. Bipolar disorder ran in the family,” he adds, “I’ve had abandonment issues and poor attachment styles—all the things that I research now [while trying] to become the best partner that I can be.”
This is, of course, the language of mental-health maintenance, of therapy sessions and self-help reading lists, and King speaks it with equilibrium, like a man for whom sharing or purging means healing. (How’s this for metaphor: King joined our interview from a sauna.) Today, he’s found love and remains committed to both his own wellness and his opportunities as an artist to advocate for mental-health awareness.
Marcus King - F*ck My Life Up Again (Lyric Video)
Yet, he is also keenly aware that the kind of transparency that he expresses himself with isn’t much of a Dixie tradition. “I grew up in a Southern household, and men just didn’t really share their emotions openly,” says King, who was raised by his father, Marvin, a blues guitarist and singer. “Only through music would they even get close.”
King’s new album, Mood Swings, produced by Rick Rubin, is a kind of “open diary,” the guitarist explains, “for everybody to be able to open it up and have a look, have a read.” It chronicles the nadir of those long-running struggles with mental illness and substance abuse, as well as the redemption that arrived in the form of Mrs. Briley King, whom Marcus married last year in Nashville.
Following the vintage boogie rock of 2022’s Young Blood, the new record sounds especially bold, even brazen. At times it features King—a last bastion of guitar-driven integrity amongst late-millennial smartphone culture—performing atop programmed or sampled beats and high-tuned snares, Philly-soul strings, and stirringly modern vocal backing. It summons up an ambiance of contemporary R&B, pop and folk, and the smartly grooving studio-centric vibe that descends from Prince, as well as the artier psychedelic soul of songwriters like Brittany Howard. Sampled dialogue, from the landmark 1959 documentary The Faces of Depression and from one of King’s own elated, drunken voicemails, crops up as candid experimental touches. Mood Swings also finds the guitar god streamlining his solos into concise melodic delights of varying textures, placing the song and the sentiment before the Allmans-styled flights with which he made his name. “If you stay in your wheelhouse and you do something just like you’ve done before, you don’t lose any fans, but you don’t gain any,” King says. “I wanted to do something new and venture my own path and take the guitar along with me.
“[So why not] try to pitch [my instrument] in a way that’s more digestible to a generation who didn’t grow up with guitar-prominent music?”
“I’ve had abandonment issues and poor attachment styles—all the things that I research now [while trying] to become the best partner that I can be.”
Those newer generations, currently facing down historic mental-health crises, should have plenty to connect with in King’s album-length act of catharsis: “Mood Swings,” “F*ck My Life Up Again,” “Soul It Screams,” “Save Me,” “This Far Gone,” “Bipolar Love.” Even “Cadillac,” its namesake an icon of goodtime American songwriting, is a haunting exploration of suicidal ideation. “Not a lot of metaphor in the song; it’s just kind of straight up,” King says. “It is what it is: Cadillac, garage—just kind of my exit strategy, as it were. And not in any way trying to condone, or trying to glorify or romanticize that in any way. Just trying to be truthful as to where I was at the time.”
The recording sessions for Mood Swings started at Shangri-La Studios in Malibu, then later moved to Rubin’s facility in Tuscany, where King would pull 14-hour days working on the record.
Where had King been? To hear him recount the musician’s life that culminated in his version of rock bottom, he was in a kind of fever dream, shuttling between tour dates and writing and recording sessions, as his torment expanded and his ability to take care of himself withered. “I’m a mental patient, technically,” King says. “I seek treatment for mental, chemical imbalances.” But the day-to-day of a touring blues rocker didn’t square with what a therapist might call doing your homework. “I was medicated and then would be improperly medicated, because you’re not really home enough to see someone consistently,” he explains. “If you’re eating at all, you’re eating really shitty food and you’re just drinking your dinner, so your gut health is terrible, [and your] mental health is struggling as a result of it.” On the road nearly 300 days a year, King’s life was largely unfolding inside a van, without “a lot of shit to see between Colorado and St. Louis,” he says. “So you’re just kind of driving, and there’s a lot of ways to numb that—not only the pain, but the mundane as well.”
A few years ago, King started writing in Los Angeles, trapped in a soured relationship he was documenting in real time as new songs, some of which would end up on Mood Swings. He wrote about the “codependent nature of our relationship,” King says, “and the substance abuse that came with it and the excess in everything, passion included.” Later, after his partner suddenly moved thousands of miles away, a debilitating sense of isolation set in. “I couldn’t write; I couldn’t handle it,” he says. Idle time meant indulgence and the wrong kind of company. When concert schedules started up again following the pandemic, King had designs on the most desperate kind of farewell tour. “I had unfortunately made up my mind to check out of here in my own way,” he says, “on my own timeline.”
“I grew up in a Southern household, and men just didn’t really share their emotions openly. Only through music would they even get close.”
In 2019, prior to those writing sessions, the guitarist began talking to Rick Rubin. The super-producer had seen King perform “Goodbye Carolina,” an affecting midtempo rocker off 2018’s Carolina Confessions, in his Grand Ole Opry debut, and decided to make a cold call. “We spoke for quite a while about mental health and about viewing it as a writing partner,” King says, “allowing it to help me speak my truth.” A studied music fan whose knowledge belies his age, King had “always revered Rick,” he says. He recalls how Rubin’s late-career recordings of Johnny Cash were some of the last music that King and his grandfather, a country fan and performer, absorbed together. As a tween, the guitarist started digging into hip-hop, eventually making his way to the pioneering LPs that Rubin helmed for Def Jam, by the likes of Public Enemy, Beastie Boys, and Run-D.M.C. He especially appreciated Rubin’s beaten-path-detour efforts to combine rap and rock. “I really liked the phrasing,” he says, “and the way [hip-hop MCs] would rhythmically say what they needed to say over breakbeats. And I loved James Brown, and everybody [in hip-hop] was sampling ‘Funky Drummer,’ so everything just kind of came full circle in those moments.”
Marcus King's Gear
The 28-year-old King grew up listening to Johnny Cash, then later, hip-hop artists like Public Enemy and the Beastie Boys.
Guitars
- “Big Red”: 1962 Gibson ES-345 originally purchased by King’s grandfather
- Gibson Custom Shop Marcus King 1962 ES-345 with Sideways Vibrola
- 1962 Fender Stratocaster
- Harmony Sovereign acoustic
- Gibson dreadnought owned by Rick Rubin (used on Mood Swings)
- Gibson ES-330 (Shangri-La studio backline, used on Mood Swings)
- 1939 Martin D-18
Amps
- Fender Super Reverb (studio)
- Fender Deluxe Reverb (studio)
- Orange MK Ultra Marcus King Signature 30-watt head (live)
- Orange slanted 8x10 cabs with Celestion speakers (live)
- 1968 Fender Bandmaster head/Bassman cab with two Celestion 15" speakers (live)
Effects
- Ibanez Tube Screamer
- Tru-Fi Colordriver
- Tru-Fi Two Face
- Tru-Fi Ultra Tremolo
- Dunlop EP103 Echoplex Delay
- Dunlop Rotovibe
- MXR Phase 100
- MXR M300 Reverb
- MXR Micro Chorus
Strings & Picks
- Elixir Nanoweb (.011–.049)
- Dunlop Jazz III
When the sessions for Mood Swings commenced at the Shangri-La studio in Malibu, King found himself jamming with one of the funkiest drummers alive, Chris Dave, at Rubin’s behest. Alongside King and Dave, whose credits include Robert Glasper, D’Angelo, Maxwell and Meshell Ndegeocello, was keyboardist Cory Henry, a jazz, R&B, and gospel ace who earned acclaim in the fusion collective Snarky Puppy. Rubin’s idea, King comments, was simply for the trio “to create. And I think one of the initial ideas to approach this album was to kind of sample ourselves.” For about a week and a half, in six-, seven- and eight-hour days, the trio jammed and explored using a handful of simple, folkish songs King brought in.
For his part, Rubin was nowhere to be found, though he was still overseeing the sessions. “I’ll tell you,” King begins, “Rick is such a truthful, and whimsical, fan of music. He loves music so much, and he’s such a sweet human. But some of the stories you hear about him, about his eccentric approach to producing, are true.” Like the “Producer of Oz,” Rubin had GoPro cameras and microphones set up around the band, to monitor progress from afar. “He was like, omnipresent,” King says. “His presence was there, but not physically. It was really kind of a trip.”
“I was in that situation, like, breaking bad habits,” King adds, “and trying to abandon the idea that the structure and the form needed to be there before we started experimenting.”
“If you stay in your wheelhouse and you do something just like you’ve done before, you don’t lose any fans, but you don’t gain any.”
About a year later, after the sessions had moved to Rubin’s facility in Tuscany, songcraft came further into focus. King pulled 14-hour days, and Rubin, in the flesh, offered his famously sage insight. “I was really pleased to find out that this is the most intimately Rick’s been involved in a project in some time. And we spent every day together,” King says. “We would just sit on adjacent couches and listen back to what I’d done the day before.”
King first connected with Rubin after Rubin made a cold call to the guitarist after having been impressed by his Grand Ole Opry debut performance.
Photo by Tim Bugbee
One of the more fascinating angles of Mood Swings is how it represents progress, not only for King, but for his producer as well. Part of the Rubin lore has been his unmatched ability to deliver great artists from periods of profound and often painful change, by having them tap into their quintessential sounds, as if harnessing their most vital contributions to rock history. Think of Metallica’s return-to-thrash-form on Death Magnetic, or John Frusciante embracing sobriety to rejoin Red Hot Chili Peppers for Californication.
With Mood Swings, Rubin helped King regain his footing in life by unsettling him creatively, urging him toward audacious work that is nonetheless streaked with King’s signature brilliance. “Delilah” evokes the kind of wistful, classic R&B ballad that the Greenville, South Carolina’s Marcus King Band delivered with period precision. On “Bipolar Love,” its chorus a hooky, soulful marvel, King plays a luminous solo of unerring taste on Big Red, the trusty Gibson ES-345 that belonged to his grandfather, through a Fender Deluxe Reverb. Elsewhere, the album renders Marcus King a consummate neo-soul rhythm player and a shrewd, sonically curious soloist. Rubin and King employed the 6-string “the way that we approach any of the instrumentation that we love. We would deconstruct everything to the point that it was foundationally sound,” King says, so that “the song could stand up on its own with just the vocal.” (This was judicious, as King can sound like an heir apparent to Solomon Burke, with bits of Joplin grit.)
“We spoke for quite a while about mental health and about viewing it as a writing partner, allowing it to help me speak my truth.”
Still, expect to find multiple Reddit threads offering both transcriptions and attempts to decode the masterfully dialed tones throughout Mood Swings. To start, King explained that his leads here “are a little more polished, just because I wanted them to be more like written solos, almost. They were improvised in the moment, but obviously I was stacking them or adding harmonies…. Then [the solo] kind of became a part, because you gotta play it the same way every time.”
King is a guitar obsessive, to be sure, but you’d never tag him a geek; he speaks about gear and technique with a meaningful, big-picture expertise that comes off as nonchalance. During the Mood Swings sessions, he didn’t have access to a massive arsenal of gear, but did smart work with some loyal axes, among them Big Red and his red Tele, his ’62 Strat, his Harmony Sovereign acoustic, and a Gibson J-45 or J-50 owned by Rubin. On “F*ck My Life Up Again,” he tracked the backwards solo on a Strat, “trying to go full Hendrix,” he says. Amp-wise there, he recalls a “Super Reverb in a big chambered hallway—get some natural ’verb, amp cranked,” along with what he believes was his Tru-Fi Colordriver for fuzz. (I’d like to rank this the second-finest Hendrixian backwards solo to go down on Rubin’s watch, following only Frusciante on “Give It Away.”) For “Hero,” a cowrite with the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach, he tracked a Strat slide solo on top of an acoustic lead. The slide work on the sanctified “Me or Tennessee” is a triumvirate of Strat, Super Reverb, and Tube Screamer, and finds King invoking the sacred-steel tradition, as turbocharged by Roosevelt Collier and Robert Randolph. For some of his favorite tones on the record, King decided to go straight “David Gilmour and hook the fuzz pedal up and play straight through the console and just high-pass it.”
The core performer trio on Mood Swings was made up of King, drummer Chris Dave, and keyboardist Cory Henry.
Mood Swings is still a kick-ass guitar record, even if it’s not a willfully “kick-ass guitar record” like King’s previous effort, Young Blood, produced by Auerbach with bloozy panache and released on Rubin’s American label. When that homage to the early ’70s was captured, King was still in a bad place. “I was really mentally detached during the recording process,” he admits, even as he takes pride in its ZZ Top swagger. And although certain songs foreshadowed the confessional bent of Mood Swings, King says he “didn’t feel as personally connected to some of the material.” In a way, he explains, his primary instrument became a crutch. “I felt like I leaned more heavily on the guitar, which had always been a safety blanket for me from when I was a kid, from young traumas to teenage traumas.”
“His presence was there, but not physically. It was really kind of a trip.”
Back in 2021, in the summer before Young Blood was announced, King returned to the road following the pandemic, opening dates for Nathaniel Rateliff. “On that first show back, I realized my actions and everything I was up to extracurricular-ly affected me performing,” King says. “I was having a hard time getting through the show.” The following morning, his health necessitated a doctor’s consult. “He said, ‘Just don’t quit everything at once, and just start putting things down,’” King shares. “And then that’s kind of when I started that process.” That same day, King met his wife, Briley, who sweetens “Delilah” and “Cadillac” with vocals. “I met her, and she had her shit together and I did not,” he says. “And I just wanted to have my shit together for her…. And I wanted to have my shit together for myself, for the first time in a long time.”
King’s focus these days, he says, is doing the heavy lifting of improving his physical and mental health. “It’s like anything else, man. It’s a skill and it’s not innate,” he argues. “I kind of [liken] it to reading music. I used to read music, but if you put something in front of me now, I couldn’t do it.”
Already his efforts are paying off. “I was out in L.A. recently, doing some work, and I got to the hotel I was staying at … and it was the same room that I’d stayed at when I wrote ‘Bipolar Love,’” he recalls. “Just being back in that same room … ’cause they say a man never stands in the same river twice, it felt like I was back in that river, I’d returned. And I just was completely different and water had already flowed through. It felt really full-circle and validating, the whole process.”
YouTube It
Watch King perform “Goodbye Carolina” in his 2019 Grand Ole Opry debut—the performance that captured the interest of super-producer Rick Rubin.
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With authentic stage-class Katana amp sounds, wireless music streaming, and advanced spatial technology, the KATANA:GO is designed to offer a premium sound experience without the need for amps or pedals.
BOSS announces the return of KATANA:GO, an ultra-compact headphone amplifier for daily jams with a guitar or bass. KATANA:GO puts authentic sounds from the stage-class BOSS Katana amp series at the instrument’s output jack, paired with wireless music streaming, sound editing, and learning tools on the user’s smartphone. Advanced spatial technology provides a rich 3D audio experience, while BOSS Tone Exchange offers an infinite sound library to explore any musical style.
Offering all the features of the previous generation in a refreshed external design, KATANA:GO delivers premium sound for everyday playing without the hassle of amps, pedals, and computer interfaces. Users can simply plug it into their instrument, connect earbuds or headphones, call up a memory, and go. Onboard controls provide access to volume, memory selection, and other essential functions, while the built-in screen displays the tuner and current memory. The rechargeable battery offers up to five hours of continuous playing time, and the integrated 1/4-inch plug folds down to create a pocket-size package that’s ready to travel anywhere.
KATANA:GO drives sessions with genuine sounds from the best-selling Katana stage amp series. Guitar mode features 10 unique amp characters, including clean, crunch, the high-gain BOSS Brown type, two acoustic/electric guitar characters, and more. There’s also a dedicated bass mode with Vintage, Modern, and Flat types directly ported from the Katana Bass amplifiers. Each mode includes a massive library of BOSS effects to explore, with deep sound customization available in the companion BOSS Tone Studio app for iOS and Android.
The innovative Stage Feel feature in KATANA:GO provides an immersive audio experience with advanced BOSS spatial technology. Presets allow the user to position the amp sound and backing music in different places in the sound field, giving the impression of playing with a backline on stage or jamming in a room with friends.
The guitar and bass modes in KATANA:GO each feature 30 memories loaded with ready-to-play sounds. BOSS Tone Studio allows the player to tweak preset memories, create sounds from scratch, or import Tone Setting memories created with stage-class Katana guitar and bass amplifiers. The app also provides integrated access to BOSS Tone Exchange, where users can download professionally curated Livesets and share sounds with the global BOSS community.
Pairing KATANA:GO with a smartphone offers a complete mobile solution to supercharge daily practice. Players can jam along with songs from their music library and tap into BOSS Tone Studio’s Session feature to hone skills with YouTube learning content. It’s possible to build song lists, loop sections for focused study, and set timestamps to have KATANA:GO switch memories automatically while playing with YouTube backing tracks.
The versatile KATANA:GO functions as a USB audio interface for music production and online content creation on a computer or mobile device. External control of wah, volume, memory selection, and more are also supported via the optional EV-1-WL Wireless MIDI Expression Pedal and FS-1-WL Wireless Footswitch.
For more information, please visit boss.info.
Featuring torrefied solid Sitka Spruce tops, mahogany neck, back, and sides, and Fishman Presys VT EQ System, these guitars are designed to deliver quality tone and playability at an affordable price point.
Cort Guitars, acclaimed for creating instruments that exceed in value and quality, introduces the Essence Series. This stunning set of acoustic guitars is designed for musicians looking for the quintessential classic acoustic guitar with fabulous tone all at an exceptional price point. The Essence Series features two distinct body shapes: The Grand Auditorium and the OM Cutaway. Whatever the flavor, the Essence Series has the style to suit.
The Essence-GA-4 is the perfect Grand Auditorium acoustic. Wider than a dreadnought, the Essence-GA-4 features a deep body with a narrower waist and a width of 1 ¾” (45mm) at the nut. The result is an instrument that is ideal for any number of playing styles: Picking… strumming… the Essence GA-4 is completely up for the task.
The Essence-OM-4 features a shallower body creating a closer connection to the player allowing for ease of use on stage. With its 1 11/16’th (43mm) nut width, this Orchestra Model is great for fingerpickers or singer/guitarists looking for better body contact for an overall better playing experience.
Both acoustics are topped with a torrefied solid Sitka Spruce top using Cort’s ATV process. The ATV process or “Aged to Vintage”, “ages” the Spruce top to give it the big and open tone of older, highly-sought-after acoustics. To further enhance those vintage tones, the tops bracing is also made of torrefied spruce. The mahogany neck, back, and sides create a warm, robust midrange and bright highs. A rosewood fingerboard and bridge add for a more balanced sound and sustain. The result is amazing tone at first strum. 18:1 Vintage Open Gear Tuners on the mahogany headstock offer precise tuning with vintage styling. The herringbone rosette & purfling accentuates the aesthetics of these instruments adding to their appeal. Both acoustics come in two choices of finish. Natural Semi-Gloss allows the Sitka spruce’s natural beauty to shine through and classic Black Top Semi-Gloss.
A Fishman® Presys VT EQ System is installed inside the body versus other systems that cut into the body to be installed. This means the instrument keeps its natural resonance and acoustic flair. The Presys VT EQ System keeps it simple with only Volume and Tone controls resulting in a true, crisp acoustic sound. Lastly, Elixir® Nanoweb Phosphor Bronze Light .012-.053 Acoustic Strings round out these acoustics. This Number 1 acoustic guitar string delivers consistent performance and extended tone life with phosphor bronze sparkle and warmth. The Essence Series takes all these elements, combines them, and exceeds in playability, looks, and affordability.
Street Price: $449.00
For more information, please visit cortguitars.com.
Cort Essence-GA4 Demo - YouTube
Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.Moth Electric's C. regalis overdrive pedal offers massive boost, natural overdrive, and searing distortion for guitar and bass. With active treble and bass controls, clean blend, Smooth/Crunch modes, and true-bypass switching, this USA-made pedal is a versatile addition to any pedalboard.
Adding a new model to their line of overdrives, Moth Electric has released the C. regalis. Equally suited for guitar and bass, the meticulously designed C.regalis is capable of massive boost, natural, singing overdrive, and searing mid-gain distortion. Its six op-amps power a dynamic, crunchy overdrive circuit with a suite of features including:
- Active treble and bass controls that allow for +/- 15db boost and cut. Perfect for tailoring the C. regalis to your instrument and amp.
- A powerful clean blend for introducing either your amp’s natural character or another effect into the equation. Allows the C. regalis to become a more transparent overdrive.
- Smooth/Crunch modes, provide a subtle change in feel with ‘Smooth’ increasing sustain and ‘Crunch’ introducing high-order harmonics for additional texture.
The C. regalis offers the following features:
- Bass, Treble, Blend, Volume, Drive controls
- Smooth/Crunch modes● More volume than you’ll ever need
- True-bypass switching, top-mounted jacks for easy placement on crowded pedalboards
- 9-volt DC operation with external power supply – no battery compartment
- Designed and hand-built in the USA using through-hole components
The C. regalis carries a $179.99 price and is available for purchase at mothelectric.com.
For more information, please visit mothelectric.com.
OK WOW. Moth Electric C.REGALIS - Pedals and Tea EP 57 - YouTube
Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.The long-running noise rockers detail what they packed for their January 2025 run across the U.K.
When the Jesus Lizard released their seventh studio record, Rack, last September, it ended a 26-year hiatus between recordings, and lovers of raucous, steely rock music around the world rejoiced. As guitarist Duane Denison told PG’s Nick Millevoi in our feature story, the key to the album’s vitality—and reviving the band’s brutal sound—was simple: “Practice loud.”
Ahead of a hotly anticipated U.K. tour celebrating the record, the band gathered at SIR’s rehearsal space in Nashville to do exactly that. PG’s Chris Kies stopped by to see what Denison and bassist David Wm. Sims were stuffing into their suitcases for the trip across the pond.
Brought to you by D’Addario.Higher Powers
The last time Denison invited us to his Nashville home for a Rig Rundown, he was using Electrical Guitar Company models. This time around, he’s smitten with this Powers Electric Type A. Most of the guitar’s features are proprietary, including the bridge, pickups, and the vibrato system. The trussed hollowbody is made from urban ash with a solid maple top, and comes with a compound radius Honduran rosewood fretboard.
Denison digs the definition and articulation in the attack of the discrete FF42 single-coil pickups, which bridge the gap between a humbucker’s hot output and a traditional single-coil’s brightness. He goes through four different tunings in the current Lizard set: E standard, drop D (for “Hide & Seek”), drop G (on “Thumbscrews”), and a strange tuning with flat E and D strings for “Thumper.” Coated Stringjoy Orbiters (.105–0.50) handle the changes, as well as the Stringjoy Jumbo Jazz picks Denison uses.
Sweet Victory
Denison has switched from Blackstar amps to this 2-channel Victory VS100 Super Sheriff. He’s always preferred British amps: “American guitars and English amps make the world go round,” he says. Denison also uses a Marshall JCM900, which he appreciates for its simplicity compared to the JVM series, and its versatility compared to the JCM800.
Helix Help
Denison sets up this Line 6 Helix as a pedalboard, with tweaked versions of his favorite analog delay pedals programmed in. Among his go-to effects are reverb, slapback delay, tremolo, chorus, wah, longer delay, and what he calls a “wildcare effect,” which comes into play for “What If?”
The Best $250 Ever Spent
Sims bought this Memphis brand Jazz-style bass in 1981 for $250, and it’s still his No. 1. He strings it with Rotosound RS66LDs, which he needs to change every three or four shows; once he senses the attack softening, he slaps new ones on.
Boomtown Brightness
Sims blasts his bass through this Gallien-Krueger 800RB, set for a classic midrange scoop with plenty of bite and bottom end. He prefers Ampeg 8x10 cabinets, or 2x15 speaker cabs.
Triple Combo
No fancy floor unit for Sims. He’s got a Boss ODB-3, an MXR Bass Chorus Deluxe, and an MXR Phase 90, all of which are used sparingly throughout the set.