Thirty-one years after Gish, the Smashing Pumpkins are still exploring the architecture of sound in their often explosive and unpredictable songs. For their current Spirits on Fire Tour, Billy Corgan leads with his Reverend signatures and a few other carefully culled guitars, and Jeff Schroeder lends support with his fleet of Yamahas.
The Smashing PumpkinsSmashing Pumpkins' first two albums, Gish and Siamese Dream, were a huge part of the soundtrack for the early ’90s alternative rock revolution. Still sounding revolutionary all these years later, the band’s leader, Billy Corgan, recently brought the Smashing Pumpkins to Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena for the Spirits on Fire tour, on the heels of their 11th studio album, Atum: A Rock Opera in Three Acts.
The concept album is a sequel to the Smashing Pumpkins’ definitive three-LP masterwork Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, from 1995—which also brought them crushing into the mainstream. Acts two and three of Atum are scheduled for January and April 2023. But meanwhile, there are live shows … and all the gear it takes to recreate more than three decades years of the band’s signature sounds. PS: Special thanks to super-tech Trace Davis for his help with the fine points.
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Sticker Shocker
Billy Corgan’s main guitar, tuned in standard, is his Reverend signature Z-One in midnight black, loaded with Railhammer Billy Corgan Z-One neck and bridge pickups. This model is the third collaboration between Corgan and Reverend’s Joe Naylor, and Mr. C’s axe takes Ernie Ball Regular Slinkys, gauged .010–.046.
Purple Haze
For a back-up, Billy has his Reverend BC1 signature in satin purpleburst, loaded—again—with Z-One neck and bridge pickups, which blend the bite of P-90s with humbucker heaviness.
Those Pickup Covers!
Stare long enough at those pickup covers, and perhaps you’ll see the universe, putting a new spin on the old Zen koan. When Corgan wants things just a bit looser, in Eb standard tuning, he’ll reach for this Z-One sig in silver freeze. Oh! The strings? Ernie Ball Power Slinkys, .011–.048.
Truly Special
For a classic P-90 voice, Corgan lets the strings on this 1994 Gibson Les Paul Special sing. He keeps it tuned to C# standard and the switch has been modified (it's a secret), as has the sticker. Ernie Ball Not Even Slinkys (.012–.056) adorn this axe.
ES for Eb Standard
Another low-tuned Gibson, Corgan’s 1972 ES-335 with block inlays and a trapeze tailpiece, lives in Eb standard land and gets called out to play on the song “1979.”
The Silver Surfboard
For some mini-hum sting, Billy plays this Gibson Firebird with a Bigsby in silver finish. There are several switches in the headstock, which Corgan’s tech Davis says control the “secret sauce and voodoo magic.”
Star Baby
Corgan tours with two of his signature Yamaha LJ16BC acoustics—one in E and one in Eb standard. They’re medium-jumbos and all-stock, which means a spruce top, rosewood back and sides, a 5-ply mahogany and rosewood neck, and the company’s comfort traditional neck style.
Double Vision
Corgan tours with two identical amp rigs, with four different heads used separately for different tones, and all switched with an Ampete 444. This allows him to drive all four heads into one Laney Black Country Customs LA412 4x12 speaker cab loaded with Celestion G12H-75s. It lives in an iso box under the stage. The amps? There’s a Laney Supermod, an Orange Rockerverb 100 MKIII, a Carstens Grace, and an Ebo Customs Del Rio.
Billy Corgan’s Pedalboard
Here’s what underfoot: an RJM Mastermind GT/16 MIDI controller, an MXR CAE Power System, Analog Man Beano Boost treble booster with Mullard-style transistors, a Lehle III switching and looping tool, a Tone Bender-inspired Minotaur Sonic Terrors Evil Eye MkIII fuzz, a Strymon Brigadier delay, a Behringer Octave Divider, and a Dunlop Volume (X), used as an expression pedal for the Strymon.
Yamaha, Aha!
Jeff Schroeder plays Yamaha guitars. And he’s got four Revstars on tour. This one has an especially elegant finish. They came stocked with P-90s, but now one has Black Cat Vintage Repro Minis, another features Lollar Low Wind Imperial Humbuckers, and the one he keeps in drop D is totally stock. Schroeder goes with Ernie Ball Paradigm .009 sets for standard, .010s for Eb standard, .009s with a heavier .046 on the bottom for drop D, and .011s for C# standard.
Cutaway to the Pacifica
This Yamaha Pacifica has a scalloped fretboard and Seymour Duncan Hunter humbucking pickups in the bridge and neck, and an SSL-5 single-coil in the middle. It also features a Floyd Rose whammy upgraded with titanium parts.
Big Red
For a semi-hollow, Jeff goes with his Yamaha SA2200 guitars, with Lollar Low Wind Imperial Humbuckers.
Player’s Pick
As with all his axes, his plectrum choice is Dunlop Tortex 1.14 mms, including the the just-for-fun Dunlop YJMP03YL Yngwie Malmsteen picks (yellow), but the Dunlop YJMP02RD Yngwie Malmsteen picks (red) are beefier at 2 mm.
Double Generation
Schroeder tours with two Revv Generator 120 MKII tube heads—big, beefy, and versatile.
Don’t Call a Cab
No big boxes for Schroeder … at least onstage. He uses a pair of Two Notes Torpedo Captor X simulators, emulating a 4x12 mic’d with a Shure SM57 and Sennheiser MD421 on Celestion V30s. As a back-up, there is a Marshall 4x12 in an isolation cabinet—with a Shure SM57—under the stage. And Jeff’s “icing on the cake”—a suggested addition from tech Trace Davis (of Voodoo Amps)—is a Retrospec Juice Box. This inconspicuous box is a transformer-less, all-tube DI that has upped his live tones to a studio quality.
Double Helix
His effects array has two Line 6 Helix Rack units that live in his rolling rock case.
Central Command
At his feet he has a Line 6 Helix Control Foot Controller that works with an Analog Man Beano Boost, like Billy’s. These are fired up for solos. Also, Schroeder has a pair of Dunlop DVP3 Volume (X) pedals (one for volume and another for pitch-shifting effect from the Helix) and a Dunlop JB95 Joe Bonamassa Signature Cry Baby wah.
But Wait, There’s More
He also uses an Origin Effects RevivalDrive, a Vox Satchurator, and Fender’s Yngwie Malmsteen signature OD.
Primo Jags and ace Ernie Ball axes help the funkateer channel Eddie Hazel grooves through a prism of Tropicália rhythms.
Facing a mandatory shelter-in ordinance to limit the spread of COVID-19, PG enacted a hybrid approach to filming and producing Rig Rundowns. This is the 14th video in that format, and we stand behind the final product.
Chicano Batman was formed in 2008 with Bardo Martinez (lead vocals/keyboards/guitar), Eduardo Arenas (bass/vocals), and Gabriel Villa (drums/percussion). The foursome was fortified shortly thereafter with the arrival of Carlos Arévalo on guitar. And since then, the quartet has sharpened their modus operandi. They took their influences (English invasion, ’60s soul, ’70s psych rock, and Brazilian artists like Caetano Veloso and other Tropicália music) and morphed them into something that represents East L.A. in both 2020 and 1970.
To that point, CB is a cohesive collective of artistic assassins like The A-Team, Captain Planet, or The Avengers. Each member brings something unique, authoritative that complements and elevates the greater groove of the band.
Bardo pads his social commentary and ecological worries with an airy, sultry cadence that’s warmly hugged by warbly notes from his vintage Crumar TI Organ. Bassist Eduardo Arenas might be the busiest of the bunch with his lead lines and tasty locomotion that charges the band. That horsepower is in lockstep with the complex, time-morphing Latin percussion laid down by drummer Gabriel Villa. And guitarist Carlos Arévalo is the utilitarian that fills in the holes. In “Friendship (Is A Small Boat In A Storm)” he masquerades as Electric Ladyland Hendrix, “The Taker Story” slips into Maggot Brain Eddie Hazel-mode, and throughout 2014’s Cycles of Existential Rhyme and 2017’s Freedom is Free he taps into Tom Verlaine’s melodic single-note interplay with chord stabs.
However, Arévalo’s most unifying force might actually be his restraint. The bulk of the new LP Invisible People was written on keyboards and synths forcing him to rethink the guitar’s previously heavy-handed role. For “Color My Life,” he plays two chords around the keyboard melody and arrangement. Alone the chords seem minimalistic and boring, but in the context of the song, they’re a rhythmic firecracker. Another “reserved” element is his chord shapes often incorporate only two or three notes of the full chord harmony to avoid colliding with keys and bass.
Following the release of CB’s fourth studio album in May 2020, the soft-spoken artist welcomed PG’s Chris Kies into his L.A.-based home. The “ADHD” tone chaser opens up about balancing between vintage Jags and mint Ernie Ball Music Man guitars, finding a Deluxe Reverb killer while on a family vacation, plucking fuzz advice from Dan Auerbach, and understanding when to play.
The former Gaslight Anthem frontman shares amp-mod electrocution tales, and shows off both impressive Mark Knopfler chops and his thick-necked custom Teles.
Facing a mandatory shelter-in ordinance to limit the spread of COVID-19, PG enacted a hybrid approach to filming and producing Rig Rundowns. This is the fifth video in that format, and we stand behind the final product.
In this episode, we catch up with New Jersey rocker Brian Fallon. The Gaslight Anthem founder just released his third solo album, Local Honey, that broadens his solo sound with polished storytelling cast over an Americana backdrop. The charismatic frontman virtually welcomes PG’s Perry Bean into his home studio for a 50+-minute hang that covers the various custom Fender Teles, explains the triumphs (and agony) of reconstructing amps, and details his holy-grail drive.