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Rig Rundown: Hunter Hayes

The country star shows us his favorite gear backstage at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium.

PG’s John Bohlinger hung out with Hunter Hayes before his second sold-out show in a row at Nashville's historic Ryman Auditorium, where Hayes gave us the story behind some of his favorite guitars and played one of his killer riffs on the first guitar he bought.

Guitars


Hayes’ lyric writing doesn't end when the album comes out—he's written lyrics, chalkboard-style, all over his amps, many of his guitars, and on stage pieces. His No. 1 electric is a modified 1996 Fender Strat Deluxe Plus with an LSR Roller Nut and Lollar Blackface pickups. Although the guitar originally had a sunburst finish, Hayes gave it the chalkboard treatment this past January. He strings the guitar with Ernie Ball Regular Slinkys.

Amps


Hayes uses two vintage Fender Deluxes whose guts have been put into head boxes. One amp is for clean tones, the other is for lead, and each drives a 2x12 Ladner cabinet.

Effects


As for Hayes pedalboard, it’s fairly straightforward: His signal comes from a Shure wireless and goes to a Pedaltrain 2 board loaded with a Radial SGI RX, Boss TU-3 tuner, Demeter Compulator, Keeley Compressor (the 2-knob version), TC Electronic ND-1 Nova Delay, Fulltone OCD, Analog Man King of Tone, TC Electronic Flashback, and a 3rd Power Amplification A/B box that selects between Hayes’ Deluxe amps. The effects are powered with a Voodoo Lab 4x4, and wired with Mogami cables equipped with Switchcraft jacks.

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