
With the Messthetics, Anthony Pirog is a melodic and harmonic wildcard, who has few peers in the scope and imagination he brings to the instrument.
The ultra-versatile guitarist shares his favorite boards for rock, improv, jazz, and roots gigs, and talks about the band’s dynamic new album, The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis.
The Messthetics overrun the barriers of genre—rock, jazz, textural music, and whatever else gets in their creative path—like the bulls of Pamplona. That is … if those bulls could musically pirouette direction and dynamics in an instant. Which, of course, they can’t, because bulls are exclusively vocalists, and of limited range, unless you also count the thundering of their hooves as percussion.
But the Messthetics can, and do, which makes their three albums and live performances joyful journeys through the inner and outer sanctums of sound and melody. Like the Mahavishnu Orchestra or ’80s King Crimson, they create instrumental landscapes that astound, punch, and transport.
The heartbeat of the band is the rhythm section of Brendan Canty on drums and Joe Lally on bass, who were already legends in the indie-rock world before the Washington, D.C.-based trio formed in 2016, thanks to their history in Fugazi. The melodic and harmonic wildcard is guitarist Anthony Pirog, who has few peers in the scope and imagination he brings to the instrument. He is an omnivorous student and musician, with a command of rock, jazz, blues, folk, ambient, and contemporary classical music. The documentation is in his substantial catalog of recordings, which, besides the Messthetics’ releases, range from solo albums and various duos including Janel & Anthony; guest turns with drummer William Hooker and other cutting-edge players; the Mahavishnu tribute Five Time Surprise with fellow outsider-guitar-giant Henry Kaiser; and the Spellcasters, a project steeped in the styles of Danny Gatton and Roy Buchanan.
The Messthetics—bassist Joe Lally, drummer Brendan Canty, and guitarist Anthony Pirog—onstage with James Brandon Lewis at Washington D.C.’s Black Cat in March 2023.
Photo by David LaMason
Recently, Pirog has been gigging and touring behind two new keystone works: Janel & Anthony’s New Moon in the Evil Age and The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis. His partner in Janel & Anthony, and in life, is Janel Leppin, a cellist and composer with an equally free-ranging sensibility. And New Moon in the Evil Ageis an entrancing double album that balances melodic exploration with a modernist folk-rock sensibility. It’s easy to get lost in its 20 compositions. On The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis, the band enlists the saxophonist, who is deep in the post-Coltrane-and-Ayler school of free-jazz horn and composition, as Pirog’s melodic and harmonic foil. And the results are astounding. Imagine Sonny Sharrock’s ’60s-inclined Ask the Ages with a more bare-knuckled but equally exceptional rhythm section. The balance of beauty and brutality is perfect within its jazz-informed structure. Some pieces, like “Moreso,” are essentially heads with plenty of space for these daring improvisors to unfurl. Others, like “Railroad Tracks Home,” are textural beasts with strong melodic spines.
“We took two or three months to write and arrange the record,” explains Pirog, who brought Lewis into the fold after he and Lewis metworking with William Hooker. “When the Messthetics are not touring, we usually meet twice a week to rehearse, and the rehearsals are essentially writing sessions—a good chance to just bounce ideas around and get a kind of group vocabulary going. So, this album is different from our first two records, where we were trying to explore the possibilities of what the guitar trio can do, in more of a through-composed way. As soon as we knew James was involved, that opened up the whole realm of different textures where I could be part of the rhythm section, or I could stop playing altogether.
“Being in the Messthetics has fueled me to do what I wanted to do,” Pirog continues. “Joe and Brendan play with an intensity I find very inspiring. And the same is true with James. He’s the perfect fit, energetically. We have a similar approach to melody—a kind of free playing and weaving in and out, so when we’re soloing together it’s amazingly fun. That’s really what it amounts to: Everyone’s having a great time and you have an understanding that you’re on the same page and things just flow, without any discussion. I could step on an Octavia and double a melody with James with a close tone that really balances well with the sound of his saxophone. At some points on the album, I can’t even really tell where the line is between James’ sound and my sound.”
On their new album, the band enlists the saxophonist James Brandon Lewis as Anthony Pirog’s melodic and harmonic foil. The balance of beauty and brutality is perfect within its jazz-informed structure.
And as any guitarist knows, sound is an important element of the magic—arguably more important than the notes plotting its course. Pirog is an avid and highly attuned pedal user, with a huge vocabulary of tones and effects at his disposal. He is quite precise in how his stompboxes are deployed. Pirog can turn his Abernethy Sonic Empress, which he runs through a flexible, punchy two-channel, 30-watt Benson Vincent head (“It has incredible clarity and presence to every aspect of the tone”) and cab, into a spacecraft or a growling tiger, utterly annihilate his tone or make it buttery and voice-like, or simply rock out like a maniac, with the push of a few buttons and carefully set dials.
For that reason, and because of the wide range of playing styles under his command, we asked Pirog to share his pedalboards for various gigs: rock, improv, jazz, and roots. “When I’m putting a pedalboard together,” he explains, “there’s nothing too crazy going on. I’m thinking about the source material, which can kind of be pitch-related or timbre-based. Then sometimes I’ll add compression or noise pedals. I’ll put anything that I want to control as the source sound before the volume pedal. Sometimes that can oscillate and create feedback, so I use the volume pedal so it won’t just be blaring. What comes to mind is William Hooker. I did a duo show with him in D.C., and he wanted me to play feedback. So, I put my fuzz pedal on with the gate wide open. Then I’ll consider gain pedals, distortions, sometimes modulation. I don’t have an exact method for modulation. Sometimes it’s before drive and sometimes it’s after, based on the pedal or the pedal type. Then, ambient delay, reverb, and I’ll get into looping stuff at the end of my chain. That’s the basic idea.”
While Anthony’s preferences might change gig to gig, as he’s always on the lookout for new pedals, here are his current pedalboard setups by genre.
Messthetics/Rock Board
Some of Pirog’s favorite pedals include the Strymon Flint, JAM Pedals Delay Llama, Red Panda Tensor, JAM Pedals Rattler LTD, and Greer Amps Lightspeed.
Since the Messthetics’ recent compositions from The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis are essentially heads with lots of room for free-ranging improvisation, Pirog has to be ready to create sounds and travel in different musical directions at less than a moment’s notice. To that end, he needs a wide array of overdrive/fuzz, pitch shifting, modulation, and volume effects.
This is currently what’s at his feet:
• Collector Effectors Zonk Machine (octave fuzz)
• DigiTech Whammy
• Classic Amplification CV-2 (Uni-Vibe clone)
• Klon Centaur
• Lehle volume pedal
• Greer Amps Lightspeed Organic Overdrive
• JAM Pedals Rattler LTD
• Red Panda Tensor
• JAM Pedals Delay Llama
• Strymon Flint (’60s reverb and ’61 harmonic tremolo setting)
• Eventide H9
• Neunaber Immerse Reverberator
Experimental/Improv Board
While the Lehle volume pedal is a staple, the Neunaber Immerse Reverberator and Eventide H9 show up on Pirog’s rock and experimental/improv pedalboards.
Of course, experimentation is a big part of the Messthetics’ aesthetic, but for free-improv gigs, Pirog needs some additional, very specific tools for layering sounds and generating atmospheric elements.
Let’s call this pedal roster his improv/experimental board:
• Collector Effectors Zonk Machine (octave fuzz)
• 4ms Nocto Loco (oscillating octave pedal)
• DigiTech Whammy
• Classic Amplification CV-2 (Uni-Vibe clone)
• Klon Centaur
• Lehle volume pedal
• Gamechanger Audio Plus (sustain)
• MASF Possessed (glitch/oscillation)
• Greer Amps Lightspeed Organic Overdrive
• JAM Pedals Rattler LTD
• Red Panda Tensor
• Montreal Assembly Count to 5 (delay/sampler/octave)
• JAM Pedals Delay Llama
• Strymon Flint (’60s reverb and ’61 harmonic tremolo setting)
• Eventide H9
• Neunaber Immerse Reverberator
• 4ms Noise Swash (oscillating noise pedal)
• EHX 16 Second Digital Delay reissue with additional foot controller (sound-on-sound looper)
• Zvex Lo-Fi Loop Junky
Jazz Board
Excuse the pun: This Klon Centaur is Pirog’s workhorse pedal—part of all his stomp rigs.
Sure, the Messthetics are a rock band, but they often border on jazz—or cross that border. And Anthony’s playing, along with fellow guitarist Henry Kaiser’s, is stellar in the Mahavishnu Orchestra tribute fusion band Five Times Surprise, who’ve so far made just one album, also called Five Times Surprise. But Pirog is also an ace at playing traditional, post-bop jazz as well as the more radical approaches minted by his musical heroes Bill Frisell and Sonny Sharrock.
“When I was in my 20s, playing jazz gigs around the D.C. area and improv gigs in New York, I would just bring my entire, huge pedalboard,” Pirog relates. “Now I’m trying to be more mobile. I can use the Klon’s tone knob to dial back some of the top end even more than I probably would in any other setting. And I will sometimes use the gain knob to boost the signal, which also increases some low end, And then I like to use delay and reverb.”
His pedal array for jazz gigs:
• Klon Centaur
• Lehle volume pedal
• Pro Co RAT
• JAM Pedals Delay Llama (set at 16 ms, to fatten tone)
• Strymon Flint
Roots Board
Roots Board
Pirog is among the rare guitarists who can play in the style of Danny Gatton with the same finesse, touch, and balance of emotional restraint and blues-and-country-based wailing. And gorgeous tone. You can hear him exercise this side of his playing as part of the Spellcasters, in the group’s tribute to Gatton and another D.C.-area Tele giant, Roy Buchanan, on the album Anacostia Delta.
His board for Gatton-style gigs:
• Lehle volume pedal
• Klon Centaur (gain set at 10)
• JAM Pedals Delay Llama
• Strymon Flint (’60s reverb and ’61 harmonic tremolo settings)
And his amp of choice in this playing mode is a ’65 Fender Deluxe Reverb, with volume on 3, approximately.
Rig Rundown - Henry Kaiser's Five Times Surprise
Although he’s currently using a different array of pedals and amps, and a different guitar, too, this look at Anthony Pirog’s rig for the Five Time Surprise recording session is nonetheless fascinating. He leads us through it, at the start of this Rig Rundown.
- The Stompbox-Builder’s Secret Weapon ›
- Switching It Up with an Effects Loop Box ›
- Confessions of a Pedal Nerd ›
Featuring vintage tremolos, modern slicer effects, and stereo auto-panners, the update includes clever Rate and Tempo controls for seamless syncing and morphing.
Today Kemper announces the immediate availability PROFILER OS 12.0 including the highly anticipated collection of advanced Tremolo and Slicer FX for the entire range of KEMPER PROFILER guitar amps.
The Collection features three vintage tremolos, two modern slicer effects, and two stereo auto-panners, that have been derived from the slicer effects. They all feature a clever Rate and Tempo control system, that allows for syncing the tremolo to the song tempo, retriggering the timing by simply hitting the TAP switch, and changing or morphing the tremolo rate to different note values,
The new Advanced Tremolo Modules in Detail
- The Tube Bias Tremolo is the familiar Tremolo in the Kemper Profilers. Formally named "Tremolo“ and available in the PROFILERs since day one, it is a reproduction of the famous Fender Amp tremolos from the 50‘s. Placed in front of the amp it beautifully interacts with the amp distortion.
- The Photocell Tremolo dates back to the 60‘s and features a steeper pulse slope, and its width varies with the intensity.
- The Harmonic Tremolo also dates back to the 60‘s and was introduced by Fender. The low and high frequencies alternate with the tremolo rate.
- The Pulse Slicer is a modern slizer or stutter effect that will continuously transition from the smoothest sine wave to the sharpest square wave, using the "Edge“ parameter. The "Skew“ parameter changes the timing of the high level versus the low level, sometimes also called pulse width or duty cycle.
- The Saw Slicer creates a ramp like a saw wave. The saw wave has a falling ramp when "Edge“ is at full position, and a rising edge at zero position. Towards the middle position a rising and falling ramp are forming a triangle wave. The „Skew“ parameter changes the slope of the rising and falling ramp from a linear trajectory to a more convex or concave shape.
- The Pulse Autopanner and the Saw Autopanner are derivates from their respective Slicers, they spread their signals in the stereo panorama. The "Stereo“-control parameter is included in many effects of the PROFILER. Here, it introduces a novel "super-stereo" effect that lets the Autopanner send the signal well outside the regular stereo image. This effect works best if you are well positioned in the correct stereo triangle of your speakers. When you move the “Stereo” soft knob beyond the +/-100% setting, the super-stereo effect comes into place, reaching its maximum impact at +/-200%.
- A single press on the TAP button at the beginning of the bar will bring the rhythmic modulation effects, such as Tremolo or Slicer, back into sync with the music without changing the tempo. The sync will happen smoothly and almost unnoticeable, which is a unique feature. Of course, tapping the tempo is possible as well.
- Modulation Rate - The “Rate” control available in many modulation effects is based on a special philosophy that allows continuous control over the speed of the modulation and continuous Morphing, even when linked to the current tempo via the To Tempo option. The fine Rate resolution shines when seamlessly morphing from, e.g., 1/8 notes to 1/16 notes or triplets without a glitch and without losing the timing of the music.
Barry Little’s onstage rig.
How you want to sound and what makes you happy are both highly subjective. When it comes to packing and playing gear for shows, let those considerations be your guide.
I was recently corresponding with Barry Little, aPG reader from Indiana, Pennsylvania, about “the One”—that special guitar that lets us play, and even feel, better when it’s in our hands. We got talking about the gear we bring to gigs, and Barry sent me the photo that appears with this column.
“I’m mostly old school and take quite the amp rig, and usually two or three Strats or ‘super strats,’ plus some Teles,” he wrote. “Some are in different tunings.” Barry also has a rack, built with famed guitar-rig designer Bob Bradshaw’s help, that he says holds a Bad Cat preamp bearing serial number one. For his ’70s/’80s rock outfit and his country band, this covers the waterfront.
I love Barry’s rig; it looks awesome! So … why do I feel guilty about the substantial amount of gear I take to gigs where my five-piece band will be playing a concert-length set? Onstage, my setup looks fantastic—at least to me. It’s the gear I’ve always wanted. But packed inside cases and ready to load into the Honda Odyssey with a rooftop carrier that all five of us and our instruments travel in for away dates … it seems excessive. Currently, I take three guitars: my customized reissue Fender Esquire “Dollycaster,” my Zuzu one-off Green Monster, and a Supro Conquistador, plus a 1-string electric diddley bow made from a crawfish-boiling pot. They start every show in open G octave (D–G–D–G–D–G), open D, standard tuning, and A, respectively. There’s also a Sony GLXD6+ wireless, and a pedalboard with 13 effects stomps, a tuner, and two power boxes, along with a Brown Box. That board is the launchpad for the stereo signal that runs into two Carr 1x12 combos: a Vincent and a Telstar. In addition, there’s a big black bag with spare cables, fuses, capos, strings, extension cords, microphones, straps, duct tape, and just about anything else you might need. After all that, miraculously, there is also room for my bandmates–another guitarist, bass, drums, and theremin—and their gear, plus light luggage.
I admit that’s a lot, but it used to be more—at least by the pound. In the late ’90s and early 2000s, I often played through two Marshall 4x12s with a Mesa/Boogie Duel Rectifier Trem-O-Verb on one and a ’72 Marshall Super Lead atop the other. And before that, it was the Marshall with a 4x12 plus a ’66 Fender Twin Reverb. I kept a waist back-support belt in the van, but spent a decent chunk of that era living with regular back pain.
“I admit that’s a lot, but it used to be more—at least by the pound.”
Where am I going with this? Besides a desire for you to absolve me of my guilt, I feel like all of this gear is … um … necessary? It’s the recipe for the sound I want to hear, for the versatility of the material, and for me to play from my happiest place—onstage in the middle of a glorious stereo field of my own making. It’s not really about gear and it’s not about somebody else’s definition of practicality. It’s about joy. Ideally, you should be able to bring whatever gives you joy to a gig. Period.
Sure, naysayers will yap that after a guitar, a cable, and an amp, nothing else is necessary. And on a certain misguided, intolerant level, they are right. We can all play a show with just the basics, but I, for one, don’t want to—unless maybe it’s a solo gig. Neither did Jimi Hendrix. There is a universe of tones out there waiting to be discovered and explored. There are improvisational paths that only a pedalboard can suggest. (Of course, if you’re playing a small stage, traveling in too tight quarters, or claiming turf that impinges on bandmates, those considerations apply. “Be kind” is a good rule of thumb for life, including band life.)
Remember, the naysayers are not in your bones, and onlyyour bones know what you need and want. Don’t let the voices—even in your own head—nag you. (I, too, must take this advice to heart.) Bring whatever you want to bring to gigs, as long as you can get it there. Do it guiltlessly. Have fun. And listen to your bones.Kim Deal on Failure: “There’s a Sweetness to Seeing Somebody Get Their Ass Kicked"
While creating her new solo record, Kim Deal was drawn to exploring the idea of failure.
The veteran musician and songwriter steps into the spotlight with Nobody Loves You More, a long-in-the-making solo record driven by loss, defeat, and friendship.
While Kim Deal was making her new album, she was intrigued with the idea of failure. Deal found the work of Dutch artist Bas Jan Ader, who disappeared at sea in 1975 while attempting to sail by himself from the U.S. to England in a 13-foot sailboat. His boat was discovered wrecked off the southern coast of Ireland in April 1976, 10 months after Ader departed the Massachusetts coast. Ader’s wife took one of the last photos of him as he set off on the doomed journey from Chatham Harbor: Ader, wearing a blue tracksuit and a bright orange life jacket cinched around his neck, is beaming.
Deal isn’t smiling on the cover of Nobody Loves You More, her new album, but the art bears some similarities: Deal is floating on a platform in an expanse of gentle, dark blue waves, accompanied only by a few pastel-colored amps, her guitar, a stool, and a flamingo. It’s an unmistakably lonely image, but for Deal, failure doesn’t mean loneliness. It’s not even necessarily a bad thing.
“I mean, at least something magnificent was tried, you know?” says Deal. “At least there was something to fail. That’s an endearing thing. I think there’s a sweetness to seeing somebody get their ass kicked, because they were in it. It warms my heart to see that, just people getting out there. Maybe it gives me the courage and confidence to try something. It’s okay if I get my butt kicked. At least you’re trying something.”
“I think there’s a sweetness to seeing somebody get their fucking ass kicked, because they were fucking in it.”
Nobody Loves You More feels at least a little like Van Ader’s journey: an artistic project so long in the making and so precious to its creator that they’re willing to break from all conventions and face the abject terror of being judged by the world. That might seem like nothing new for Deal, who’s played music professionally for over 35 years, first with Pixies, then with the Breeders. But this LP marks her first proper solo album under her own name—a thought that mortified her for a long time. (“I like rock bands,” she says.) Even when she recorded and released what could be called “solo” music, she released it under a pseudonym. Initially, it was to be Tammy and the Amps. “I still was so uncomfortable, so I created Tammy and the Amps,” explains Deal. “I’m Tammy, who are my band? It’s the amplifiers downstairs in my basement. But the Tammy thing sort of got on my nerves so I just dropped it, so it was called the Amps.” She also assembled a band around that concept and released Pacer under the Amps’ name in 1995.
The cover art for Nobody Loves You More echoes the doomed last voyage of Dutch artist Bas Jan Ader.
This new record hums with the soft-loud energetic alchemy that defines much of Deal’s previous works. The opening title track is a slow, romantic strummer with string arrangements, while “Coast” is faintly ska-indebted with horns and a ragged Blondie chord progression. “Crystal Breath” gets weirder, with distorted drums, synthy bass, and a detuned, spidery guitar lead. “Disobedience” and “Big Ben Beat” continue the darker and heavier trajectories with fuzzy stompers interspersed with ambient, affective interlude tracks like “Bats in the Afternoon Sky.” It’s a patient, sensitive, and unmistakably scrappy record.
Some of the songs on Nobody Loves You More are as up-close and personal as solo records get. One in particular that’s drawn attention is “Are You Mine?,” a sleepy-eyed, lullaby ballad. At first listen, it could be taken for a love song. (In fact, Deal encourages this interpretation.) But it’s a song about her mother, for whom Deal cared in her home while she died from Alzheimer’s. The song title comes from a gut-wrenching moment.
“I was in the house, she doesn’t know my name,” explains Deal. “She’s still walking, she can form words, but she doesn’t know what a daughter is or anything. She passes me in the hallway, stops, grabs my arm and says, ‘Are you mine?’ She doesn’t know my name, she doesn’t know who I am, but there was a connection. I knew she was asking if I was her baby. I said, ‘Yeah, mama, I’m yours.’ I’m sure five seconds later, she forgot that conversation even happened. It was just a flicker, but it was so sweet. To have her not see me in so long, and then for one brief second, be recognized in some capacity…. She was such a sweet lady.”
Deal’s mother wasn’t the only loss that went into this collection of songs. Her father passed, too, after a prolonged illness. “My dad was this big bravado sort of personality and watching them get extinguished a little bit every day… I don’t know,” she says. “They both died at home. I’m very proud of that.” But writing “Are You Mine?” wasn’t painful for Deal; she says it was a comforting experience writing the gentle arpeggio on her Candelas nylon-string acoustic.
Deal assembled the bulk of Nobody Loves You More in her Dayton, Ohio, basement, recording with Pro Tools and a particularly pleasing Electrodyne microphone preamp. (Some of the songs date back more than a decade—versions of “Are You Mine?” and “Wish I Was” were initially recorded in 2011 and released as part of a series of 7" singles.) Deal recorded a good part of the record’s drums, bass, and guitar from home, but other contributions came in fits and spurts over the years, from old faces and new. Her Breeders bandmates, including Mando Lopez, Jim MacPherson, Britt Walford, and sister Kelley Deal, all pitched in, as did Fay Milton and Ayse Hassan from British post-punk band Savages, and the Raconteurs’ Jack Lawrence.
Kim Deal cared for her parents in their Dayton, Ohio, home until their passing, an experience that colors the music on her new solo record.
Photo by Steve Gullick
Kim Deal's Gear
Guitars
- '90s Fender Stratocaster
- '70s goldtop Gibson Les Paul
- Candelas nylon-string acoustic
Amps
- Marshall JCM900
- 4x12 cabinet
- Kalamazoo combo
Strings & Picks
- .011-gauge strings
- Dunlop Tortex Standard .60 mm
One day, ex-Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer stopped by the studio to see what Deal was working on. He listened to “Wish I Was,” and scrambled together a lead idea. Deal kept the part and expanded it over time, leading to Klinghoffer’s writing credit on the record.
Deal used her trademark red ’90s Fender Stratocaster HSS along with a ’70s goldtop Gibson Les Paul for most of the electric work, pumped through either her long-time Marshall JCM900 or a tiny vintage Kalamazoo combo. Deal has never been a gearhead—at one point on our video call, she uses a tooth flosser as a pick to demonstrate some parts on her Candelas. “Kelley is a pedal person,” she says. “I’m not doing leads. I’m just doing a rhythm that needs to sound good.”
“I don’t think I’m taking it very well still, actually, or I’m a sociopath because I don’t even talk about [Steve Albini] in the past tense.”Over the years, Deal’s sonic thumbprint has been tied up in the work of her good friend and frequent collaborator Steve Albini, the producer, engineer, and musician who died unexpectedly in May 2024. (Deal quips, “Steve’s the lead character in my own life.”) Albini and Deal began working together in 1988, on Pixies’ debut LP Surfer Rosa. Their friendship continued over decades—Deal even performed at Albini’s wedding in Hawaii, for which he gifted her a ukulele—and the final sessions for Nobody Loves You More were under Albini’s watch. His parting hasn’t been easy.
“I got a text: ‘Call me,’” remembers Deal. It was a mutual friend, telling Deal that Albini had passed. “He told me and I just said, ‘You’re absolutely wrong. That didn’t happen.’ I don’t think I’m taking it very well still, actually. I don’t even talk about him in the past tense. I say, ‘What he likes to do is this.’ I never think, ‘What Steve used to like to do.’ My head never goes there. I wanted to record a song that wasn’t working and I said, ‘I need to do it from top to bottom at Albini’s.’ That’s not going to happen.”
YouTube
Along with Rob Bochnik and Spencer Tweedy, Kim Deal plays two tracks from Nobody Loves You More for a holiday fundraiser in November 2024 in Chicago.
The Georgia-based sludge slingers rely on a Tele-to-Marshall combination for their punishing performances.
Since forming in 2010, Atlanta noise rockers Whores had only released one LP, 2016’s Gold.—until this year. Eight long years later, their new full-length, WAR., dropped in April, and Whores celebrated by tearing across the country and blasting audiences with their maelstrom of massive, sledge-hammering rock ’n’ roll.
The day after their gig at Cobra Nashville, Whores frontman Christian Lembach, dressed in his Nashville best, met up with PG’s Chris Kies at Eastside Music Supply to run through his brutal road rig.
Brought to you by D’Addario.Earthy Esquire
When vocalist and guitarist Christian Lembach got sober over 20 years ago, he bought a Fender Telecaster off of a friend, then picked up an Esquire shortly after. That original Esquire stays home, but he brings this pine-body Earth Guitars Esquire out on the road. (It’s the lightest he’s ever played.) It’s loaded with a German-made reproduction of Schecter’s F520T pickup—aka the “Walk of Life” pickup intended to reproduce Mark Knopfler’s sound. (Lembach buys them in batches of five at a time to make sure he’s got plenty of backups.)
It’s equipped with a 3-way selector switch. At right, it bypasses the tone circuit; in the middle position, it’s a regular bridge-pickup configuration, with volume and tone activated; and at left, the tone is bypassed again, but an extra capacitor adds a bass boost.
Lembach installed six brass saddles in lieu of the traditional 3-saddle bridge. He often plays barre chords higher up the neck, and the six saddles allow for more accurate intonation.
All of Lembach’s guitars are tuned to drop C, and he plays with D’Addario Duralin .70 mm picks. They’re strung with heavy D’Addario NYXL sets, .013–.056 with a wound G. The 30-foot Bullet Cable coil cable attenuates some of the guitar’s top end.
Tuned-Up Tele
Lembach had this black Fender Telecaster—the one he bought from his friend—modified to his preferred Esquire specs, with a single bridge pickup and the same 3-way selector configuration as his other weapon. He prefers the 6-saddle bridge to this rusty 3-saddle version, but this one holds a special place in his heart all the same.
Favor From Furlan
When John Furlan of Furlan Guitars reached out to Lembach about building him a custom guitar, it was an easy sell. The two worked together on this beauty, based on a non-reverse Gibson Firebird body with a Fender-style scale length, roasted maple neck, and rosewood fretboard.
It’s got a bridge and locking tuners from Hipshot, and it’s loaded with Greenville Beauty Parlor P-90s. A typical Gibson-style toggle switches between neck, bridge, and both configurations, while another Esquire-style 3-way switch on the lower bout handles Lembach’s preferred bridge-pickup wirings: no tone, tone and volume, or bass boost.
No Logo
Lembach stays loyal to his twin Marshall Super Leads, with taped-over logos—an aesthetic Lembach picked up from Nirvana. A tech in Atlanta figured out that the one on the left is a 1973, which runs at eight ohms, or half power (Lembach removed two of the power tubes), into a 16-ohm cabinet. The power drop allows Lembach to coax feedback at lower volumes. The original preamp tubes from Yugoslavia—no longer a country, mind you—are still working in the amp.
The one on the right is a reissue 1959SLP from 2002 or 2003, which Lembach finds brighter than his vintage model. He goes into the lower-input second channel to dampen the edge.
Both amps run through Marshall JCM800 cabinets with Celestion G12T-75s.
Christian Lembach's Board
A Loop-Master Pedals Clean/Dirty Effects Switcher manages Lembach’s signal. Its A loop is used for verses, bridges, intros, and outros, and has the majority of the pedals in it. The first thing in the A loop is the ZVEX Fuzz Factory made specially for the band, followed by a Devi Ever Soda Meiser, Beetronics Swarm, Keeley Nova Wah, Spiral Electric FX Yellow Spiral, Boss NF-1, and Alexander Pedals Radical II Delay.
The B loop has a clone of the Electro-Harmonix Green Russian Big Muff, an EHX POG, and a ZVEX Super Hard On. The A loop is already pretty loud; B somehow gets even louder. An EHX Superego+ is a new addition that Lembach’s planning to integrate.
A CIOKS DC10 powers the board, and a Lehle device under the board cleans up unwanted hum and noise.