Distilling the intensity of an incredibly difficult year, Mastodon have returned with a sonically massive and richly melodic new single, “Your Ghost Again.” Written and recorded amidst an unimaginably chaotic and difficult time, the track confronts the untimely death of friend and former bandmate Brent Hinds and the passing of drummer Brann Dailor’s mother. The band reflect on the song’s themes and the losses that informed them in a conversation with journalist J Bennett that they shared on their socials in conjunction with the song’s release - watch it here.
“Your Ghost Again” is quintessential Mastodon, with bassist Troy Sanders and Dailor trading vocals over the alternately bombastic and moody guitars of Bill Kelliher and new guitarist Nick Johnston amid atmospheric flourishes from keyboardist João Nogueira. Equal parts crushing and poignant, the band channel profound grief into one of the most emotionally charged compositions of their storied career, weaving intersecting themes of memory, resilience, and raw vulnerability. Produced by Patrik Berger and Kurt Ballou and mixed by Andrew Scheps, “Your Ghost Again” offers a preview of what’s to come in the group’s next chapter as they put the finishing touches on their forthcoming full length.
“For me, ‘Your Ghost Again’ is about when you lose somebody that’s close to you that you existed with for most of your life—or your whole life,” Dailor says. “It’s those moments when you’re in those familiar places that you’ve always been with that person, and then, after they’re gone, you see them out of the corner of your eye, and it makes you sad because they’re not there. When we were in the studio recording, I kept seeing Brent. I’d see him on my right holding the guitar because that’s where he’d usually be. It’s the same with my mom: I keep seeing her. And you get a little jolt of excitement because you think you’re actually seeing them, but then you remember they’re not here and it takes you down a notch. So, it’s these big relationships for me that became the subject matter of the song. I was just singing about what I was seeing, and I was seeing ghosts.”
In conjunction with the release, and following on their ongoing run of European festivals and headline dates with Loathe, the band have announced The Poisonous Weapons Tour, a nationwide run of dates with support from Deafheaven and Alcest. Kicking off September 16 in Orlando, the trio of bands will cut their way across the full country before closing out October 24 at Sick New World Dallas. Find full dates and a link for tickets and VIP packages below.
“Your Ghost Again” is out now on Loma Vista Recordings.
John Bohlinger gets his hands on the Fender Custom Shop Limited Edition Seymour Duncan 50th Anniversary Telecaster, a faithful recreation of the personal guitar Seymour Duncan has played for over 50 years. The design traces back to the iconic guitar Seymour originally built for Jeff Beck, but features custom elements to Seymour's exact specifications. It's got a Gibson Tune-o-matic bridge, aged nitro finish, and a pair of exclusive hand-wound pickups that aren't available anywhere else.
Fender Custom Shop Limited Edition
50th Anniversary Telecaster®
Celebrate fifty years of tone innovation with the Fender Custom Shop Limited Edition Seymour Duncan 50th Anniversary Telecaster. This faithful recreation of Seymour’s personal “TeleGib” features a unique pre-production variation of the JB/Jazz pickup set custom wound to Seymour’s specifications, authentic contours, and vintage-correct finish, offering players and collectors a limited chance to experience an important piece of guitar history.
The Estonian guitarist left home more than a decade ago to take a shot at Nashville, walking off a plane and straight into Sturgill Simpson’s band. Now, reunited with Simpson as Johnny Blue Skies & the Dark Clouds, the Telecaster ace has never sounded freer.
Over the past few years, Johnny Blue Skies & the Dark Clouds have been one of the hottest bands in America, even if their name has caused some confusion. In 2021, Sturgill Simpson, a rising rocking outlaw country superstar, stopped touring. When he returned three years later, it was under a new name: Johnny Blue Skies.
And while no one quite knew what to make of the name, the return to musical greatness was undeniable. It was clear on Passage du Desir, the first music released under the new name—and on the tour that followed, consisting of scorching, three-hour-plus single-set shows. As for the band lineup, it featured the same three musicians who had backed Simpson earlier: guitarist Laur Joamets, bassist Kevin Black, and drummer Miles Miller, augmented by keyboardist Robbie Crowell.
Now, Johnny Blue Skies & the Dark Clouds are back with Mutiny After Midnight, an album thatwas released in March on physical media only—Simpson/Blue Skies are nothing if not iconoclasts.
Johnny Blues Skies & the Dark Clouds
Photo by Edwin Keeble
Joamets is a blazing guitarist, combining precise country style Telecaster licks with overdriven rock riffs, all underpinned by a clear blues grounding. He and Blue Skies have excellent interplay. And the music on the new Mutiny After Midnight sounds very much like the product of a band, not a group backing a performer, something that’s reflected in the moniker. It’s the first time Simpson’s backing band has been specifically named.
“This time, it seems to me that he wants this to sound like a band, and have as many different influences in there as possible,” Joamets says. “There’s always going to be country in there, but it’s more open for all of us now. I can be freer and wider as far as my influences and playing style go.”
“There’s always going to be country in there, but it’s more open for all of us now.”
Joamets’ rise towards the top of Nashville’s guitar world is quite an astounding story. He grew up in Tartu, Estonia, and started subbing for his guitarist father when he was 15 years old. He learned classic rock by the likes of Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, and Jimi Hendrix by listening over and over to his dad’s Soviet vinyl albums.
“I was three years old when the [Berlin] Wall came down, but what I’ve heard is it took six months for records by the Beatles or Zeppelin to get to Soviet Estonia,” he says. “Even though there was the Iron Curtain, people found a way to get that stuff. It’s impressive how scarcity makes people value the product a lot more.”
When Joamets Sr. started a Jerry Lee Lewis tribute band, his piano player became “a great source of information on ’50s rock ’n’ roll, rockabilly, and blues, as well as Danny Gatton and the ’80s resurgence of rockabilly, like Stray Cats,” Joamets says.
Joamets digested that music and found himself drawn ever more to the bluesier side of guitar playing. His journey from performing in clubs in his hometown, to touring with Simpson, to then becoming a central part of Johnny Blue Skies & the Dark Clouds, began with meeting Michael Miley, the American drummer in Rival Sons, who lives part time in Estonia. They became friendly when Joamets’ band opened for them and Miley began lobbying the guitarist to move to the U.S.
“He kept saying, ‘Dude, if it doesn’t work out, you can always come back and you’ll only be 30! You never know what might happen. What you don’t want to do is not try anything in life, then wake up older and with regrets,’” Joamets recalls.
Urmas Anderson Charmer (“basically an Estonian brown-panel Deluxe”)
Fender Pro Junior
1970s Music Man 2x12 combo, heavily modified by John Capito from Black Tape Amplifiers
Effects
T-Rex Replica
Real McCoy wah
sRossFx “Double Essassin” booster/overdrive/fuzz
Kogoy Tone Bender
Roger Mayer Octavia
MXR Flanger
MXR Mini Booster
MXR Echoplex
Source Audio True Spring Reverb
T-Rex Replicator D'Luxe Analog Tape Delay
“Spencer Ross of Ross Effects built a boost pedal for me that is probably going to be my signature pedal. It’s a diverse pedal with mild overdrive mixed with a little bit of fuzz.”
Strings, Picks, & Slides
Elixir strings (.010–.046; for open tunings, .011–.049 or .052)
Custom Dunlop Pedal Steel E9 strings
Dunlop Wedge .88mm picks
Songhurst Rock Slide
Clinesmith Polymer 7/8" x 3.25 Pedal Steel Tone Bar
A couple years later, with enough money saved to ease his fears, Joamets asked Miley for some introductions. The drummer sent some of his Estonian friend’s links to producer Dave Cobb, who happened to be in the studio with Simpson, who happened to be looking for a guitarist. That got the ball rolling, and before long Joamets was walking off a plane and into a minivan with a new band. It was the very start of Simpson’s rise to becoming a certified sensation. Upon arrival, Joamets says that his English was “awful” and that he thinks his bandmates “suspected that I was autistic because I was so quiet.”
“There’s so many great guys here who do that Telecaster thing so well and are immersed in classic country, so there’s no point in trying to get a guy like that from anywhere else,” says Joamets. “Lucky for me, [Simpson] wanted something different.”
Joamets was almost immediately in the studio recording 2014’s Metamodern Sounds in Country Music, an album that Simpson told American Songwriter was recorded and mixed “in five and a half days for about $4,000.” It was critically lauded and boosted Simpson’s profile, before the follow-up, 2016’s A Sailor’s Guide to Earth, made him a superstar. Both are landmark albums in modern outlaw country, completing Joamets’ remarkable ascension.
But by 2017, after four years and two terrific albums together, Joamets left Simpson’s band, shortly after landmark performances on Saturday Night Live and at the Grammys. What looked like a triumphant peak from the outside felt to Joamets like the beginning of the end.
“We had been grinding for a long time, and it’s hard to see how fast the train is going when you’re in it,” he says. “Honestly, I may have started to burn out a bit by the time of that SNL show. It was a little bit of everything. I may have had a personal identity crisis. I didn’t really understand who I was as a musician, or maybe even as a person. The moving to another country part turned out to be a little harder than I thought it would.”
“I worried I didn’t sound American enough, that I had no right to be playing this music.”
After leaving Simpson’s band, Joamets further established himself in Nashville, formed his own group, Lore, and played with Drivin N Cryin for seven years. He continues to sit in or sub on lead guitar for the long-running Atlanta rockers whenever possible, and singer/guitarist Kevn Kinney and bassist Tim Nielsen remain important supporters and mentors.
“They’ve always been very easy to be around and are almost like a bunch of uncles who showed me the ropes and how to do this thing right,” he says. “They’ve seen it all, and are a very encouraging and forgiving bunch of people.”
When Simpson returned to touring after a three-year break, performing as Johnny Blue Skies, he reassembled his band—including Joamets, by then an established Nashville badass and an American citizen, who was thrilled at another chance to play with him under any name. (In keeping with the public name change, the story will hereafter refer to Johnny Blue Skies, not Sturgill Simpson.)
“I was absolutely excited to be back on stage with Johnny, and to do it with the same people who picked me up from the airport in a minivan,” says Joamets. “When we got together again, just to jam and brush up on things, everything was there immediately, even though we hadn’t been together for seven years. We started playing, and it was like putting on an old leather jacket that you loved. Everything was just like it was supposed to be, very effortless, and now I enjoy every minute of it in a way that I just couldn’t the first time.”
Joamets performs with Drivin N Cryin at the FAB (First American Bank & Trust) Festival in Athens, Georgia, on March 17, 2022.
Photo by Mike White
Mutiny After Midnight is a diverse album that flows like a live performance, moving through disco beats, hard-rocking jams, and looped guitars. Simpson’s voice, a rich, resonant instrument redolent of Waylon Jennings and other country greats, is mostly down in the mix, emphasizing the music and the sound of the band. The music has a feel and flow that is reminiscent of group improvisation, the kind of thing that can happen when you have a great band with excellent chemistry and they just start jamming. It sounds like that because that’s what it is.
“Some of these songs were jams,” Joamets says. “We had these progressions or parts of songs that were recorded during the last tour and soundchecks, and then I think [Johnny] just ended up writing lyrics on top of those. He had a groove or a beat and just laid a bunch of chords and wrote songs on top of them at the spot, so everything was very spontaneous, and he works extremely well in these conditions. It’s remarkable to watch. I had a lot of fun doing it this way.”
Anyone who’s ever been in a hot band knows about the killer jam that starts when one person plays a riff or sets a groove and everyone falls into place. It can be the perfect way to create great music when you have the right guys and the right vibe—you’re playing every day, and getting to know one another’s moves with the intensity and immediacy that creates the best music.
“There’s definitely great chemistry between Johnny, Miles, Kevin, Robbie, and myself,” Joamets says. “The thing that Johnny did that I think is so smart, is we recorded this album when we were fresh off a tour and still warm from that experience.
“I enjoy working like that, because on a great tour, you almost develop some telepathy about what you’re doing, so things were happening as we recorded that we didn’t even talk about. It’s that sort of stuff that comes with time and chemistry. Having just been on the road for a year and a half, we were in a great spot to record and create some music on instinct.”
“We started playing, and it was like putting on an old leather jacket that you loved.”
Joamets himself was far more comfortable this time around—with his own playing, with his role in the band, and with his place in the American music world.
“I have now lived and played with a ton of different musicians and learned a lot more,” he says. “There was much less stress this time—less worrying if I was doing it the right way, if I was good enough, why I was even there. When I first came, I felt responsible for not messing up this long history of music. This is American culture and I wasn’t born here, so I felt a huge responsibility not to screw it up. I had this kind of imposter syndrome—and it’s not totally gone! I worried I didn’t sound American enough, that I had no right to be playing this music.”
Joamets continues, “With Metamodern, [Johnny] was making an album that was more inspired by ’50s and ’60s country, which means that you have to play quite authentically to the way that people played back then. It was also the first time for me to record in America. Now, I was less stressed about it.”
Onstage, Joamets uses a minimal pedal board, though he is more open to experimenting in the studio. “I like messing around with weird sounds and gadgets while recording more than live,” he says. “Onstage, I just want a dependable tone and to play music. When I go to shows, I don’t care what the guys are using or if they’re changing their delay pedal sounds or whatever. I want to hear the notes and the music and how it fits together, so that’s what I focus on myself.”
Joamets is also a fine slide player. He wears it on his pinky, which allowed him to also handle rhythm when playing without another guitarist in Estonia. Johnny Winter is a clear influence here, as well as Sonny Landreth; a video of Sonny fretting behind the slide was key to Joamets’ developing his own technique. With Blue Skies, he has also become an adept pedal-steel player.
The guitarist has been working on a solo album, mostly instrumental, with a few songs featuring vocals by Aaron Lee Tasjan, who also wrote the lyrics to those tracks. The album isn’t completed yet, but the title is set: Foreign Feathers.
“We have an old saying in Estonia, which basically translates to, ‘I decorate myself with foreign feathers,’” Joamets says. “Which, to me, is the essence of being a musician. You want to be original, but you can’t create anything out of nothing. It all comes from different places. So I have songs that reference David Bowie and Queens of the Stone Age and Albert King, even if nobody but me will hear that. It’s like a phrase that I’ve learned here—the definition of true originality is undetected plagiarism.”
Completing this solo album will help Joamets put an exclamation point on his remarkable journey. It’s been a head-spinning experience, from learning guitar in Estonia from his father, to playing in cover bands there, to coming to America, to learning English, to now finding himself touring arenas.
“I definitely wake up everyday trying to remind myself to be grateful, because this doesn’t happen, ever,” Joamets says. “That’s all I can do—remain as humble as possible, try to do a better job, and appreciate that I’m here.”
Positive Grid announces the REACTOR Intelligent Guitar Amplifier, a 1x12” electric guitar combo amplifier (50W and 100W models) with a new approach to amplification that builds tone from the ground up.
REACTOR is powered by Amp Intelligence™— a new type of sound engine that builds guitar tone on demand. It enables players to go from idea to a finished, playable sound in seconds. Instead of searching through tone presets or manually dialing in sounds, players can describe a tone, upload a recording, or share an image. REACTOR responds by building a complete signal chain or even a custom amp in real time, delivering a full, rich sound that feels dynamic at any volume.
REACTOR also provides flexible tools for shaping tone. The amp’s top panel features a full array of controls for fast adjustments, while its exclusive mod switches and a dedicated app provide deeper tone design options.
As a performance amp, REACTOR combines a powerful, high-volume 1x12” platform with selectable wattage and professional connectivity, enabling it to move easily from rehearsals and live performance to home practice and recording.
The optional REACTOR Control footswitch enables hands-free performance control.
Amp Intelligence™
At the core of REACTOR is Amp Intelligence, a tone engine built to understand how great amplifiers actually work.
REACTOR’s Amp Intelligence tone engine decoded over 200 amp designs at the circuit level — gain stages, transformers, bias points, harmonic response — capturing the behavioral DNA of the most legendary amps ever built. So every tone it builds is grounded in how great amp designs actually work. The result is tone that's dynamic, alive, and responsive to every note played. Any tone imaginable can be delivered on demand, from the familiar to never-before-heard.
Tone Creation On Demand
With most amps, players are limited to fixed presets or manually adjusting settings to get close to their desired sound. REACTOR changes the rules. Guitarists describe the tone they want and REACTOR delivers a full, rich, playable tone. The Creator Hub in REACTOR’s dedicated app lets guitarists build tones – whether a familiar favorite or something completely new – in one of three ways:
Text → Tone: Describe an artist, sound or idea; literal or abstract.
Image → Tone: Snap or upload a photo of gear, an object, a selfie or anything that inspires sound.
Audio → Tone: Upload an audio file or screen recording of anything.
Each input results in a complete signal chain, built in real time. Players can refine tones through simple instructions, or by hands-on control using the amp’s top panel, or by dragging any of the onboard effects within the app’s visual signal chain.Users can also start with one of 24 included amp models. Or, they can ask REACTOR to build a custom amp, whether to recreate a favorite or to design something entirely new that doesn’t yet exist.The app can store the amps and tones players create, building a personal library. Community-created tones and amps are also accessible online via ToneCloud.
Stage Tone. Any Volume.
Most amplifiers lose depth and character when played at lower volumes. REACTOR is designed to sound like itself wherever it’s used. Selectable wattage (1W, 25W or full power) maintains full, present tone at any level, whether at home, in the studio, or on stage. A custom 12” speaker in a wood cabinet delivers the warmth and projection expected from a performance amp, even at lower volumes.
Classic Control. Modern Amp Mods.
A tactile top panel offers the immediacy of classic knobs for quick adjustments (gain, EQ, reverb, volume); an amp knob to audition a variety of amps in any signal chain; an effects section; and eight user-saveable, onboard preset slots.Two exclusive mod switches powered by Amp Intelligence extend tonal control further:
HEAT – adjust feel and harmonics without significantly changing volume.
PUSH / SMOOTH – move between cutting lead presence for soloing and a warmer, rounder response for playing rhythm guitar.
Complete Rig Integration
REACTOR is built to integrate into any setup with comprehensive I/O:
USB-C direct recording
Line out with cabinet simulation
FX loop
Power amp input
Bluetooth® audio and app control
MIDI input
Headphone output
The optional REACTOR Control footswitch adds hands-free control with six switches, expression pedal support, and wired or wireless operation.
It Remembers
REACTOR includes Tone Memory that remembers how players build and refine tone. Over time, each session starts closer to the intended tone and REACTOR evolves into an amp that reflects the player’s sound and feels distinctly their own.
Pricing and Availability
REACTOR and the REACTOR Control footswitch are currently available online and at authorized dealers, with pricing as follows:
Seymour Duncan, has announced the launch of the Fender Custom Shop Limited Edition Seymour Duncan 50th Anniversary Telecaster®.
Crafted by the Fender Custom Shop, this faithful recreation of Seymour’s personal “Tele-Gib” guitar features humbuckers custom wound to Seymour’s specifications, authentic contours, and vintage-correct finish.
Key features include:
Authentic Historical Replica – Precise reproduction of Seymour's personal workhorse guitar, featuring his preferred Tune-o-matic® bridge and stop tailpiece
Fender Custom Shop Craftsmanship – built with period-correct details, tasteful relicing, and meticulous attention to the original's weight, tone, and feel
Exclusive Custom Shop Pickups – Maricela “MJ” Juarez-wound replicas of Seymour's personal pre-production JB/Jazz set
Custom Body Contours – Features the exact arm contour and belly cut from the original 1950's Telecaster body that Seymour modified himself
Limited Collector's Edition – Strictly limited 50th Anniversary release with signed certificate of authenticity, representing five decades of pickup innovation
More than fifty years ago, Seymour W. Duncan reshaped what a Telecaster® could be. While working in London in the early 1970’s, he created the first “Tele-Gib” for Jeff Beck, blending Telecaster simplicity with humbucker power and sustain. Shortly after, Seymour refined the concept further for his own personal guitar, starting with a 1950’s Fender body and neck, but addressing intonation, string spacing, and ergonomics in ways that suited his own preferences. That instrument became Seymour’s lifelong workhorse.
Now, Duncan and the Fender Custom Shop have collaborated to recreate Seymour’s “Tele-Gib" in a special limited run. Every detail of Seymour’s personal instrument has been meticulously studied and faithfully reproduced by the Fender Custom Shop. The Fender Custom Shop Limited Edition Seymour Duncan 50th Anniversary Telecaster® features a one-piece select ash body with Seymour’s custom arm and belly contours, all finished in a beautifully aged nitrocellulose lacquer. The neck is a comfortable C shape, precisely matching the taper and feel of the original. To ensure the authentic Tele-Gib experience, the guitar features an aged gold Gibson Tune-o-matic® bridge and stopbar tailpiece, providing the feel and tuning stability that Seymour demanded for his studio and stage use.
At the heart of the Tele-Gib is a unique, pre-production variation of the JB/Jazz pickup set, replicating the pickups Seymour built for his own guitar. Wound by Maricela “MJ” Juarez in the Seymour Duncan Custom Shop, lightly aged, and exclusive to this guitar, this set features a slightly different bridge coil wire than a production JB, along with carefully de-gaussed magnets tuned to Seymour’s personal preference. The 500k Bourns volume potentiometer and 250k CTS tone potentiometer were selected to match the exact setup in Seymour’s guitar. The result is a familiar voice with a more nuanced response, matching the pickups that powered Seymour’s original Tele-Gib.
Each limited-edition instrument includes a certificate of authenticity signed by Seymour W. Duncan and the Fender Custom Shop, representing the connection between two icons. The “Tele-Gib” 50th Anniversary Telecaster is more than a collector’s piece. It is a direct link to the origins of modern electric guitar tone, built for players who want to hold history in their hands and own a guitar that embodies the innovation and craftsmanship of Seymour Duncan and Fender.
Fender Custom Shop Limited Edition Seymour Duncan 50th Anniversary Telecaster® carries a street price of $5,999.00. For more information visit https://www.seymourduncan.com/50th-Telecaster.