There’s heavy music … and then there’s End. Formed in 2017, the band is vocalist Brendan Murphy (Counterparts), guitarist Will Putney (Fit for an Autopsy), guitarist Gregory Thomas (formerly of Shai Hulud and Misery Signals), bassist Jay Pepito (Reign Supreme), and drummer Billy Rymer (the Dillinger Escape Plan). The supergroup was created to push the extremes of hardcore music. And, as you’ll soon find out in this Rig Rundown, mission accomplished.
From day one, guitarists (and producers) Putney and Thomas strived to achieve a signature calling card. They wanted a monstrous, monolithic tone that bulldozed listeners. “It’s pretty aggressive [laughs],” concedes Putney. “When we started the band, Greg and I talked about finding an identifiable tone that was us and sticking with it.”
And the roots of their sledgehammering sound? “We’re very influenced by the Nordic metal of Entombed, and then, later, Rotten Sound, and American delineations Trap Them,” says Thomas. “A lot of those bands rely on the Boss HM-2 or clones to get their grinding distortion. We actually landed on the Way Huge Swollen Pickle fuzz because it’s more articulate for our galloping picking and offers more control.”
While the band does continue to challenge their consistently crushing sound, the Pickle always satisfies. “Every time we record something, we’ll try other pedals in place of the Swollen Pickle, but we always go back to it,” admits Putney. “It’s become the one. It’s us.”
Hours before End’s sold-out show at Nashville’s the End (appropriate coincidence), PG’s Perry Bean popped onstage to explore the (nearly) mirrored, merciless setups of guitarists-turned-producers Putney and Thomas. Thomas details how three octave pedals and two noise gates coexist in his setup. Putney pulls back the curtain on the development of his signature STL Tones Tonality package. And both prove that a bottom-heavy fuzz paired with prominent pitch-shifting into a 5150 is the way to part seas and elicit moshing madness.
Brought to you by D’Addario XPND Pedalboard.
A Mean Marauder
The connection between Gregory Thomas and the Gibson Marauder can be pinpointed to when he first saw Quicksand’s video for “A Thorn in My Side.” It featured frontman Walter Schreifels riffing on the overlooked singlecut. It was only in production for five years (1974-1979), turning out just over 7,000 guitars. The Maurader was aimed as a bolt-on-neck, single-coil rival to the popular Fender models. Thomas has collected four of these ’70s oddballs, and while they all share the same ingredients (modified with humbuckers), he claims each one has its own distinctive snap and snarl.
Currently, this Marauder has a Seymour Duncan Nazgul (bridge) and Sentient (neck). The neck pickup is disconnected, making the pickup selector a killswitch. For End, both Thomas and Putney live and die on the bridge pickup. His backup Marauder has a custom-wound set of Black Triangle humbuckers. They exist in drop C tuning (with the low E tuned to C rather than D, to create more dissonance) and use various string brands gauged .010–.052.
Are You Mistaken?
The unusual Marauder continues to baffle as it is paired with a headstock normally reserved for Gibson’s Flying V guitars.
Amp Swap
Prior to starting End, Thomas played rhythm guitar for the metalcore act Misery Signals. After wrapping a tour, he and lead guitarist/cofounder Ryan Morgan accidentally swapped Peavey 5150 heads. They later acknowledged the goof but kept using each other’s amps. The above firebreather was used by Morgan on the band’s first albums Of Malice and the Magnum Heart and Mirrors. Since adopting this 5150, Thomas had its innards overhauled by “Stereo Joe,” who removed unnecessary resistors and installed bigger filter caps, giving the amp more volume and bite. It hits a sturdy Atlas 6x12 that is constructed with dovetailed 13-ply (3/4") Baltic birch and finished with a maple hardwood front frame. The speakers inside are four Celestion Vintage 30s and two Celstion G12H-75 Creambacks.
Up, Down, Up
There’s basically three main functions or sections to Thomas’ pedal playland: fuzz, noise, and pitch-shifting. The Way Huge Swollen Pickle is Thomas and Putney’s substitution for the heralded Boss HM-2 buzzsaw—a hallmark of the Scandinavian-metal sound. The Pickle runs into the dirty channel of the 5150, creating a cascade of filth and furor. Next is the noise (or lack thereof). End are givers of gain, and to keep things tight both guitarists run two Fortin Zuul noise gates. Thomas puts a new Zuul+ on his board, controlling the Pickle, while an original Zuul runs inside the amp’s effects loop to snare any remaining buzz. End’s low-end tidal wave of destruction is fortified with several pitch-shifters adding in low octaves. To accomplish this chest-punching power, Thomas employs an Electro-Harmonix Pitch Fork (dropping their tuning down to A#), CopperSound Pedals Triplegraph (co-designed by Jack White), and a Boss PS-3 Digital Pitch Shifter/Delay. (Keen observers will notice a MXR Carbon Copy that doesn’t necessarily fit into these categories, but he does run it with the mod circuit engaged, giving a slight up-and-down pitch shift to the delayed signal. So, it technically could fit under the pitch-shifting umbrella.) And a Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 Plus brings life to his board, while a Boss TU-2 Chromatic Tuner keeps his guitars in check.
A Cyclops and Bigfoot Walk Into a Bar…
Guitarist Will Putney first made his mark in heavy music when he started deathcore dealers Fit for an Autopsy in 2008. Shortly after that, he added production to his musical credits when he opened Graphic Nature Audio, his Belleville, New Jersey, studio. He’s since put his stamp of stank on over 50 albums by various bands, including Every Time I Die, Counterparts, Like Moths to Flames, Body Count, Four Year Strong, and, of course, his own outfits. All this background information is pertinent to establish that Putney doesn’t waste time with subtleties.
When seeking out a Dunable Cyclops, he asked builder Sacha Dunable (also guitarist/singer of Intronaut) to give him “the crazy” pickup, so Dunable dropped in his Bigfoot. The ceramic, rail-type passive pickup offers about 20k of firepower. The swamp-ash body features an oversized single knob that controls volume, and it comes with a 25.5" scale length.
5150 Part Deux
Like Thomas, Putney does not leave home without his Peavey 5150. He’s had this 5150 II model since he was 18. He tours with another Peavey 5150 and loves recording with the EVH 5150 III (EL34), but this is the one. (Hence, it's nestled into a secure road case for travel.) It feeds into a similar Atlas 6x12, to harmonize with Thomas’ aural avalanche.
Putney Pulverizes with Pedals
The first five pedals on Putney’s board are the same as Thomas’ setup (TU-2, Zuul+, Pitch Fork, Swollen Pickle, and Triplegraph). His board forms its own shape with the addition of the Abominable Pedals Demon Lung (fuzz), EarthQuaker Devices Astral Destiny, and MWK Audio Design Lonely Ghost (delay/reverb/boost). He runs a dbx 266xs Compressor/Gate in the effects loop of the 5150 II.
Alluvial's current band lineup is, from left to right, Tim Walker (bass), Wes Hauch (guitar and vocals), Matt Paulazzo (drums), and Kevin Muller (vocals).
Wes Hauch knows the terrain intimately. Now 38, he's enjoyed high-profile stints over the past decade with the Faceless, Thy Art Is Murder, Glass Casket, and Black Crown Initiate, and he's forged lifelong friendships along the way. After just a few minutes in conversation with him, it's easy to see why.
"Dude, that's what I've always wanted, you know?" he says in earnest. "I still am one of those guys who's a total romantic about bands. It's almost a high school thing, where you're like, 'We're gonna be the best bros, and it's gonna be totally democratic!' And you know, then you get your ass handed to you a few times, because it just doesn't often work that way. But it hasn't kept me from trying."
ALLUVIAL - 40 STORIES (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO)
Check out the crushing lead single off the band's sophomore album, Sarcoma.
All that effort has paid off with Alluvial—the band Hauch hatched in 2015, at first as just an idea: "I started to think about putting a band together that was everything that I missed about what wasn't going on in heavy music," he says. It led to the moody and marauding all-instrumental debut The Deep Longing for Annihilation, self-released in early 2017 to little fanfare, but which nevertheless drew the attention of Animals as Leaders' Javier Reyes, who invited Hauch out for a U.S. summer tour. Alluvial very nearly dissolved in a haze of uncertainty by the end of that year, but for Hauch, the seed had been planted. Resolving to escape from Los Angeles and its swirling vortex of distraction and debauchery, he packed up his truck and made the cross-country move to Atlanta.
"There's something about the energy of Atlanta that just has always felt very welcoming to me," he says. "It's almost like you can feel its arms around you. L.A. used to feel like that, but not anymore." Word got out quickly that Hauch was ready to work on new material. Before long, he had ex-Suffocation lead singer Kevin Muller lined up to collaborate, and over the course of the following year they churned out a dozen demos that laid the foundation for Alluvial's latest album, Sarcoma.
Recorded with Muller and drummer Matt Guglielmo (Hauch plays all guitars and bass), and engineered at Vorticist Studios with John Douglass, who is well-known in metal circles for his tireless attention to sonic detail, Sarcoma plumbs wide and deep in its musical scope. Rooted lyrically in themes of pain, vulnerability, and catharsis, the album marks a notable transition for Hauch, not just as a guitarist, but also as a songwriter and producer.
TIDBIT: Wes Hauch tracked Alluvial's Sarcoma with John Douglass at Atlanta's Vorticist Studios. "As far as the guitars go, there's nothing reamped," Hauch says. "The tone you hear is the tone that we tracked."
"For one thing, after the first album I'd grown pretty tired of my playing," he reveals. "I just wanted to reload the barrels, intellectually and otherwise. That being said, maybe one of the most challenging things in this day and age is that you need to be self-contained. You have to be able to record yourself pretty well, and you have to be able to make videos. So I spent time on trying to get good at that, and I spent time on my health and my psyche, just doing this deep cleanse on my own poor behaviors."
Meanwhile, Hauch set about upgrading his arsenal on a few key fronts. A two-year collaboration with the design team at Seymour Duncan led to the 2019 release of his signature Jupiter humbucker for 7-string guitar—a hypermodern beast that gives him high-end clarity with a huge bottom end. He added this to his Ibanez RGD guitars, even as the Ibanez L.A. custom shop was preparing several Iceman 7-string axes, including one with a beautifully finished, almost-mantis-green burst that arrived just in time to be featured on the bone-crushing album opener, "Ulysses."
"I still am one of those guys who's a total romantic about bands."
Hauch also updated his Mesa/Boogie stable of amplifiers, including a modded Triple Crown (retubed with JJ Electronic 6L6s and ECC83 high-gain preamp tubes) that he describes as "a completely different amp," with a bigger, ballsier sound, as well as a Revision F Dual Rectifier. "Boogie heads are like finding a wild horse or a bear and trying to make it bend to your will," Hauch jokes, citing his acquisition of a Boss Waza Tube Amp Expander, a Fortin Blade Whitechapel boost pedal, and a Fortin 33 Fredrik Thordendal Signature, all of which allow him to sculpt the traditional Boogie sound with unusual precision. "You have to hit them kind of hard with the clean boost. With the Fortin 33, I believe there's about 20 dB of a clean boost, with an emphasis on the 2.5k region, that puts the Boogie right in check and it makes it sound giant, but it's still got all this teeth on it."
To translate all that in the studio, Hauch found a kindred spirit in Douglass. Nearly all the sessions for Sarcoma were tracked by February 2020, before the pandemic shutdown, so the creative flow was never interrupted. "As far as the guitars go, there's nothing reamped," Hauch says. "The tone you hear is the tone that we tracked."
Wes Hauch's Gear
Photo by Randy Edwards
Guitars & Pickups
- Ibanez RGD (7-string)
- Ibanez L.A. Custom Shop Iceman (7-string)
- Ibanez BTB 5-string bass
- PRS Mark Tremonti Signature
- Seymour Duncan Signature Jupiter Rails
Strings and Picks
- D'Addario (.010–.052 gauge, .062 for 3rd string)
- Dunlop picks
Amps
- Mesa/Boogie Triple Crown TC-100
- Mesa/Boogie Revision F Dual Rectifier
- Boss Waza Tube Amp Expander
Effects
- Fortin Blade Whitechapel
- Fortin 33 Fredrik Thordendal Signature
- Line 6 Helix
Here, he points out the inspirational power that emerges when playing in G# standard tuning (G#–C#–F#–B–E–G#–C#) on seven strings—an inherent thickness that anchors each song in an earthy aura of conviction. "Along with certain vocal effects, a lot of the sonic identity was born at John's studio. John is really the hero of this record. We didn't work on the actual arranging of songs all that much, but he was there when I was writing lyrics. He's just someone that I trust."
Hauch invested just as much trust in his own ability, which comes through in the album's freewheeling sense of exploration. The title track explodes out of the gate as a menacing wave of staccato riffs underpinned with precision rhythm changes and thrashy textures, while Muller breathes fire into a line like, "Confess that you are no one—NOTHING," just as Hauch launches into an ecstatic solo that ripples, by contrast, with an uplifting sense of hope.
"Boogie heads are like finding a wild horse or a bear and trying to make it bend to your will."
"Sugar Paper," a trippy instrumental that surges with vintage-prog leanings, opens with Hauch laying out on a clean PRS Custom 22 (from Douglass' personal stash) before he gnashes into a complex, sawtoothed call-and-response section with Guglielmo. It's capped with a brilliant solo by the Black Dahlia Murder's Brandon Ellis, who brings his Eric Johnson and Yngwie influences straight to the forefront.
Hauch refers to "The Putrid Sunrise" as a twisted cross between Goatwhore and Black Flag, and it's all that: a seething, swirling mini-epic of hyped-up hardcore with a bridge section that swoops deep into psychedelia. The song came together as a subtle tribute to Hauch's mates down under. "I played it for Andy Marsh from Thy Art Is Murder. He's a good friend of mine, and he generally doesn't like my music, but I'm not one of those people who needs that in a friendship. I'd prefer you to be honest with me. And you know what a bogan is, right? That's Australian slang for a hick or a hillbilly. He said, 'Aw, this sounds like shit. It sounds like bogan thrash!' And it made me laugh. I'd disagree with him, but I like that he just tells me exactly what he feels."
Hauch collaborated with Seymour Duncan on his signature Jupiter Rails humbucker for 7-string guitar, which he puts into his Ibanez 7-strings, such as this RGD model.
Photo by Randy Edwards
Just to flip the script, "40 Stories" features Hauch himself on lead vocals, delivering a soulful take on one of the album's most melodically adventurous tracks. "I just went in there and did it," he recalls. "I can sing, but I've never thought of myself as a singer. Basically, this whole band has been an exercise in figuring out what it is that I can actually do. And then I do it, and I'm like, okay, well maybe I should just do this all the time now."
Of all the themes and ideas Hauch brought to the woodshed in making Sarcoma, personal growth is probably the one that drives him most. To him, Alluvial is more than just a vehicle for creative expression, although that is an integral part of the plan. "I'm always trying to find something that's a different sort of rhythmic motif for metal, just to see if it's going to work, and if it's going to make people feel it, or if it's going to make me feel it, at the very least."
Wes Hauch plays his Ibanez Iceman 7-string while supporting Devin Townsend on the 7000 Tons of Metal 2020 cruise in January 2020.
Photo by Tom Couture
He talks with candor about finding these kinds of emotional connections, because, at the root of it all, he feels drawn to understanding and articulating the ideal, the responsibility, of what it means to be in a band. And with Sarcoma now in the books and potential live dates looming in the future, that ideal is morphing yet again, with bassist Tim Walker (Entheos) and drummer Matt Paulazzo (the Zenith Passage) joining the ranks for what Hauch hopes will be the long-term, fully activated version of Alluvial. However it works out, he wants everyone to know that he'll keep giving his heart and soul to the music.
"I'm always trying to find something that's a different sort of rhythmic motif for metal, just to see if it's going to work, and if it's going to make people feel it, or if it's going to make me feel it."
"For me, it really is from a very personal standpoint," he says thoughtfully. "But the personal part of it is, with heavy metal—especially the variety that we play—I want it to be for people who didn't get good grades in school [laughs]. But I also want our music to be inclusive, to a degree. As much as I love super deep cred shit, and that's always going to be a part of the music for this band, I still want to go play with Morbid Angel, or I want to go play with, like, August Burns Red, you know? I want to go play with everyone … all the people that enjoy the message that's usually coupled with that distorted guitar. And for anyone who's checking this out, I want to say thank you, because it's hard to get anyone to participate in your art these days. The fact that people are, I'm very grateful."
Wes Hauch - Alluvial "Ulysses" One Take Play Through
In this clip, guitarist Wes Hauch does a one-take playthrough of the opening track, "Ulysses," from Alluvial's second album, Sarcoma. As Hauch says, "No effects. No funny business. Warts and all."