Bad Books’ Robert McDowell

While touring in support of 2009’s Mean Everything to Nothing, Robert McDowell and the rest of his Manchester Orchestra cohorts collaborated with tourmate Kevin Devine to form Bad Books. They’ve released two albums (2010’s S/T and 2012’s II), but the main projects have kept Bad Books shelved until their hometown show in Atlanta for Shaky Knees where McDowell brought his MO rig including “Sheriff”—a Fender ’72 Telecaster Deluxe reissue. In our Rig Rundown with him, he says “It originally belonged to bandmate Andy Hull, but McDowell really gravitated towards it at the same time Hull was falling out of love with it.”