See how this badass Texan uses her signature Epiphone Sheratons to create pop-music earworms that get wrapped in barbed wire thanks to a āpatent-pending,ā 3-pedal-combination trademark.
Emily Wolfe doesnāt play guitar. She bends it to her will. Like a bronco buster taming a stallion, she saddles up on her signature Sheratons and lets it rip. Much of the magic felt and heard on her self-titled debut was pure adrenaline hitting your speaker. Her second album, 2021ās Outlier, incorporated Wolfeās love of Motown grooves and modern-pop stickiness, both of which refreshed her songwriting with backdrops of more polished, waxy tones, but tumbleweed oscillation, helicopter, square-wave chops, and barbed-wire fuzz are still howls welcomed in this Wolfe pack.
āWhen I go up there, something could hit me at any pointāan emotion that I felt 10 years ago could come out in a bend on the low E. Thereās so much rawness [to classic rock]; the edges are not perfect, but thereās a magic in that,ā Wolfe told PG in 2021.
But how do you marry earworm poppiness with a gunslingerās approach to guitar?
āSome of my rock friends say, āPop isnāt relevant,ā and Iām like, āWhat are you talking aboutāitās everywhere!ā Itās so sticky for people, and thatās really fascinating to me. I want my music to have that quality ⦠but also the realness of a raw guitar tone. [With Outlier] I wanted to make something that would be classic 10, 20, 30 years from now,ā she explained in our profile. āThat was the goal, and I think we achieved it.ā
Before Wolfeās headlining show at Nashvilleās Blue Room (located inside the Third Man Records compound), PGās Chris Kies joined the shredding songwriter onstage to talk shop. The resulting conversation covers the development behind her Epiphone Sheraton, how a boring night in Cleveland spent with her āChex-mix-crushing, brother-in-toneā bass player Evan Nicholson convinced her to play a doubleneck guitar, and we discover what three pedals work together to make what she describes as āthe sound that belongs to me.āBrought to you by D'Addario XPND.
Signature Steed
Emily Wolfeās first ārealā guitar was an Epiphone Sheraton. (She really wanted a Gibson ES-355 like blues hero B.B. King, but Wolfe was just a strapped college student.) That first experience with a semi-hollowbody guitar had a seminal influence on her guitar-playing journey, contributing to her singular sound. āEvery decision I made with my gear was as a result of building my tone around that first Sheraton.ā Now honored with a signature Epiphone Sheraton of her own, the Stealth is a modern take on John Lee Hookerās longtime favored ride. It has a layered maple body with a mahogany neck, signature bolt inlays, a Tune-o-matic bridge, CTS pots, two volume controls and one tone control, and Epiphoneās Alnico Classic PRO pickups. She discreetly put her John Hancock on the back of the headstock. She uses Ernie Ball Slinky Cobalt strings (.010ā.046) and strikes them with Dunlop Tortex Jazz III .88 mm picks. This one stays in either standard or drop-D tunings.
The White Wolfe
The āWhite Walkerā edition of Emilyās signature Stealth features all the same specs of the black model aside from the aged bone white finish. This one does take a custom set of Slinkys (.012ā.060) and holds a Wolfe-tweaked open-C tuning (CāGāCāEāAāD).
You could win your own if you enter this giveaway before October 20, 2023. Click here to enter
Double Trouble
How does a boring night in a Cleveland hotel lead to Wolfe owning a doubleneck Epiphone? Well, her bass player (and best friend) Evan Nicholson wondered if Wolfe had ever tried a doubleneck guitar. She said āno,ā and so started the quest to prove that women can rock a pair of necks, too! She acquired this Epiphone G-1275 and uses it mainly for her cover of T. Rexās āThe Sliderā by using the lower 6-string (in drop-C) for the rhythm parts and the 12-string for the songās solo. The two necks tuned separately allow her to put both guitar parts under her hands with one guitar.
Dancing with the DeVille
Saying an amp has āno characterā might be seen as negative by some, but Wolfe prefers the āmiddle-of-the-roadā base tone in this Fender Hot Rod DeVille 410 III. It packs plenty of volume, and Wolfe adds, āI get to pick what character I want with my pedals.ā
Emily Wolfe's Pedalboard
āIf I get a new piece of gear, I have to figure out every single part of it before I can really use it,ā Wolfe confessed to PG while talking about Outlier. That sensible curiosity has led her to dialing in precise parameters on the pedals and creating colossal combos with singular Wolfe gain staging. Her silver bullet is the EarthQuaker Devices Tentacle analog octave-up pedal, running into a Fulltone OCD, and an MXR Six Band EQ. She claimed to PG, āThatās the sound that belongs to me.ā The sequence creates a ācrazy fuzztoneā from the overdrive. Then she uses the EQ to reduce some of the lows and boost the mids for a sound she says will get her guitar to cut through any mix.
Other spices in the rack include an Analogman King of Tone, an EarthQuaker Devices Dirt Transmitter fuzz, an Ibanez Analog Delay Mini, an Origin Effects Cali76 Compact Deluxe, a Walrus Audio Julia chorus/vibrato, and a Strymon Flint. The Empress Buffer puts the Delay Mini and Flint outside the RJM Mastermind PBCās control.
But Wait... There's More!
Underneath the hood, Wolfe has tucked in a pair of MXR M109S Six Band EQ pedals (one hitting the King of Tone and the other hitting the OCD), an Electro-Harmonix Pitch Fork, an EarthQuaker Devices Tentacle analog octave up, and a couple of Strymon power supplies (Ojai and Zuma).
Shop Emily's Rig
Epiphone Emily Wolfe "White Wolfe" Sheraton
Ibanez Analog Delay Mini Pedal
Origin Effects Cali76 Compact Deluxe
Empress Buffer
Strymon Flint
Walrus Audio Julia Analog Chorus/Vibrato V2
Electro-Harmonix Pitch Fork
MXR M109S Six Band EQ Pedal
EarthQuaker Devices Tentacle
Strymon Zuma
Strymon Ojai