Nearly 40 years ago, Nuno Bettencourt walked into Mouradian Guitar Co. in Boston, where Pat Badger was working. They formed a bond that would change their worlds—and ours—with the multi-platinum band Extreme. In March of 2024, Badger, Bettencourt, and their tech John Thayer invited PG’s John Bohlinger to talk through their current rig.
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Washburn Wrecking Crew
This Washburn N4 was developed in collaboration with Nuno Bettencourt, Washburn, and Seattle-based luthier Stephen Davies. The guitar was introduced in the mid-to-late 1990s and became Bettencourt's primary guitar. The 4N features a balanced alder body with a Seymour Duncan ’59 in the neck and a Bill Lawrence L-500 in the bridge, plus an ebony fretboard and a Kahler whammy that was featured on the earliest iterations. Later production models included a Schaller tremolo before landing on the current Floyd Rose dive bomber for off-the-rack N4s. Nuno’s strings are a custom set of GHS Boomers (.009–.052) and his custom-made picks come from Grover Allman in Australia.
Sweet As Honey
This is “Bumble Bee,” a custom-painted N4 tribute to King Edward that was done by the luthier Craig Stofko behind CHS Custom Guitars, based out of Carmel, New York. It’s a standard Nuno Washburn signature, but with a maple fretboard (a first for Nuno and the N4 series).
Softer Sounds
This Washburn Festival EA20S-Nuno Bettencourt is in the video for Extreme’s song “More Than Words,” which was filmed over 30 years ago.
This custom-painted Washburn 12-string acoustic is heard on “Hole Hearted.”
Triple Duals
Nuno tours with three Marshall JCM 2000 Dual Super Leads. Usually, he only runs one through a Marshall 4x12 cab. (There are six total onstage but only one is hot and mic'd.) All the cabs are loaded with Celestion G12T-75s that combine a huge, tightly controlled low-end and aggressive mid-range with a softened top-end.
Nuno runs few effects. In front of the amp, there’s a battery powered Pro Co RAT (which stays on all the time), a Boss OC-5 Octave (plugged in and connected for just two solos), and a script logo MXR Phase 90 without a light. There’s also a Boss GT-8 that runs through the effects loop of the Marshall for delays.
Kingly Gifts
This Mouradian CS-74 bass is Pat Badger’s number-one. The alder-bodied bass, fitted with an EMG pickup, was built for Tom Hamilton from Aerosmith. About two years ago, Tom gave the bass to Pat. This and all of Badger’s basses are strung with Rotosound Ultramag Strings (.045–.105).
This Mouradian one-pickup bass was built for Michael Anthony from Van Halen. Michael passed it along to Pat a few years ago.
This classic ’80s Hamer Blitz bass is a recent Reverb purchase.
Badger's Den
Badger tours with two Ampeg amps: a SVT-4 Pro and a SVT Classic. There’s a wall of 4x10 cabs underneath them, but only one is used.
Pat runs his bass into a Boss TU-3 tuner, Boss GE-7 EQ, EHX Micro POG, Pro Co Rat, Tech 21 SansAmp Bass Driver DI, and EBS Billy Sheehan Signature Drive.
Shop Nuno Bettencourt & Pat Badger's Gear
Washburn N4-Nuno Vintage USA Electric Guitar
Washburn Nuno Bettencourt N4 Authentic Signature - Natural Matte
Seymour Duncan SH-1n '59 Model Neck 4-conductor Humbucker Pickup - Black
MXR CSP026 '74 Vintage Phase 90 Pedal
Pro Co RAT 2 Distortion / Fuzz / Overdrive Pedal
Boss OC-5
EMG 35DC Active Ceramic Modern Humbucker Bass Pickups
Rotosound UM45 UltraMag Type 52 Alloy Bass Guitar Strings - .045-.105 Standard 4-String
Ampeg SVT-CL 300
Ampeg SVT-810AV 8x10"
Ampeg SVT-4PRO 1200-watt Tube Preamp Bass Head
EBS Billy Sheehan Ultimate Signature Drive Pedal
Tech 21 SansAmp Bass Driver DI V2 Pedal
Electro-Harmonix Micro POG Polyphonic Octave Generator Pedal
Boss GE-7 7-band EQ Pedal
Boss TU-3 Chromatic Tuner Pedal with Bypass
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Over the last four decades, the courageous and creative Flaming Lips have put out 16 studio albums. Their genre is an alphabet soup that ranges from acid rock and ambient to zany psychedelia, all while pumping on a pop heartbeat. They’ve won three Grammys, written and filmed an alien colonization movie and soundtrack (Christmas on Mars), reimagined Dark Side of the Moon with Henry Rollins, had their hit “Do You Realize??” named the official rock song of Oklahoma, and of course, performed in bubbles before and during the pandemic.
As members of one of rock’s most adventurous bands, founding frontman Wayne Coyne and his longtime collaborator, multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd (who originally joined the band in 1991 as a drummer), have tried almost everything, including transforming their sensitive-smash album, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, into a Broadway musical. And Yoshimi was back in the spotlight this spring as the Lips toured for its (delayed) 20th anniversary, playing it front to back for their show dates later in the season.
Before the band delighted a sold-out crowd at the Ryman Auditorium with Yoshimi and 11 other of their greatest hits, Drozd invited PG’s Chris Kies onstage to catalog his bizarre-yet-basic setup. Steven details the origins and deterioration of his 1967 Fender Jazzmaster (and why there’s a Hot Rails in the bridge), explains the superficial reason why his doubleneck only has one fretboard, and shows off a pedalboard that’s probably smaller than yours.
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1967 in Heaven
If you’ve seen the Flaming Lips over the last 30 years, you’ve witnessed this guitar slung over either the shoulder of Coyne or Drozd. Steven purchased it during the summer of 1992 from Horn Trader Music in Oklahoma City. What was the price tag? $700!
He talked to PG in 2010 about the experience of meeting the guitar: “[Horn Trader] sold all this vintage gear, and the moment I walked in the store, that ’67 Jazzmaster just called to me. It’s weird to say, but there are times when you walk into a store and it just hits you—that urge or voice that says, ‘This is the one.’ Just to make sure I wasn’t nuts, I picked it up and played it for a minute, and all that did was confirm my subconscious urge. It is just one of those guitars that anyone who picked it up would comment on the neck and just how easy it is to play.”
Shortly after the purchase, he took it over to Wayne’s house and left it there. When he returned to reclaim his offset, there was a big surprise for him.
“I was still the drummer when I bought that guitar, so I had left it over at Wayne’s for a few days and he tinkered with it. I think he got the idea he was going to use it for touring, so he dropped a Seymour Duncan Hot Rails in it. I came over later and I was pissed because I had this idea of keeping it original and pristine. But the fact of the matter is that the Hot Rails were a saving grace. The original setup with JM pickups would have just howled with all of our fuzz boxes.”
Long ago the Jazzmaster’s rhythm circuit was removed. It takes .010–.046 strings and stays in standard tuning. All of his guitars share a single Sondery Wireless Guitar Transmitter Receiver System.
Rust Never Sleeps
A close-up proves that the ’67 has been a part of every Flaming Lips show since 1994.
Double Made Single
Drozd believes this is an Epiphone G-1275 Double-Neck guitar, but if you look closely, the truss rod cover reads “Gibson,” just like the neck plate. He removed the bottom 6-string neck for a repair, and both he and Coyne agreed that the guitar looked way cooler with just the single 12-string neck on the doubleneck body. Another peculiar thing is that Drozd only puts 11 strings on it (losing the second G string) to prepare it for a particular song—where he uses the doubleneck with a Line 6 FM4’s Octisynth setting—because having only one string for a specific note of the scale allows the pedal to track clearer.
Sign Me Up
A zoomed-in shot of the G-1275 reveals a pair of signatures from Stephen Colbert and Mick Jones.
The Only New One
During his 2010 interview with PG, Drozd mentioned that he had never bought a brand-new instrument. He still hasn’t, with the exception of this 2011 Gibson SG Standard he bought the following year in Oklahoma City. It splits stage time with the Jazzmaster during the Yoshimi set. The new kid on the block takes .009–.042 strings.
Rolan' on a River
Drozd had been a user of Roland JC-120 Jazz Chorus combos since the mid 2000s, but has since downsized to the compact JC-40 models using a pair in stereo. He doesn’t use the reverb or modulation circuits, and instead relies on just the clean tone, opting to color his tone with pedals.
Steven Drozd's Pedalboard
Given the nature of the band’s expansive and deranged sounds, you wouldn’t be blamed if you thought Drozd would have a rack of pedals or three tethered boards. But you’d be wrong—as he’s currently touring with nine stomps and an Ernie Ball volume pedal. Doing a lot of the heavy lifting is the Boss GT-1000CORE. The other sonic scalpels and sizzlers are a Subdecay Liquid Sunshine, a duo of Universal Audio units—a Starlight Echo Station delay and Golden Reverberator—a TC Electronic Spark, a ZVEX Fuzz Factory, a Source Audio Nemesis Delay, a Keeley Electronics 30ms Automatic Double Tracker, and a Boss EQ-200 Graphic Equalizer.
And with 127 user memories, tap tempo, carryover, MIDI, and more, the DM-101 offers the features and versatility of an advanced digital pedal—but with the vibrant, characterful sound that’s only possible with authentic analog BBD circuitry.
Analog delays based around BBD (bucket-brigade device) microchips emerged in the 1970s as a compact and cost-effective alternative to the standard tape delays of the era. Their warm, saturated, and highly musical sound established a distinctive style of delay that remains favored by many musicians and audio engineers. With its modern CPU control approach, the DM-101 supercharges this classic effect with enhanced capabilities for today’s music makers.
The DM-101 flows effortlessly between gritty vintage echoes and modern analog delay tones with extended high-frequency clarity. Multiple internal circuit elements are switched to define each of the 12 modes, including the number of active BBDs and their connection order, low-pass filter settings, and clocking rates. Twisting the Variation knob cycles through parameters unique to the different modes. And like a traditional analog delay, users can drive the effect into saturated self-oscillation by cranking the Intensity knob.
A major benefit of the DM-101’s CPU control is the ability to realize sophisticated stereo sounds not available with other BBD analog delays. For example, Pan mode routes each BBD and its feedback loop to alternate points in the stereo field, while Dual Mod shifts the modulation phase for each output to generate a wide, spacious delay effect. Six of the 12 modes support stereo operation, providing everything from short reverb-like sounds and expansive modulated delays to pattern delays for intense rhythmic effects.
The DM-101 offers all the creative benefits of an advanced modern delay pedal. Tap tempo and note subdivisions are available with most modes, and there’s carryover for maintaining repeats when the effect is bypassed. Users can store and recall favorite setups with four onboard memories and connect up to two footswitches or an expression pedal for extended real-time control. MIDI I/O takes things further, providing remote access to 127 user memories, MIDI sync, and more. The stereo audio outputs are set for blended operation by default, but they can be easily reconfigured for wet/dry rigs and wet-only parallel setups.
The Boss DM-101 will be available in the US in July for $499.99.
For more information, please visit boss.info.
