![Rig Rundown: Kenny Wayne Shepherd [2023]](https://www.premierguitar.com/media-library/rig-rundown-kenny-wayne-shepherd-2023.jpg?id=33113856&width=1245&height=700&quality=85&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C0)
It’s been 11 years since Kenny Wayne Shepherd filmed his previous Rig Rundown. PG’s John Bohlinger caught up with the blues-rocker before his recent sold-out show at Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium to hear some killer playing and see some untouchable—by anyone but Kenny and his tech—gear.
The tour stop was supporting the December 2022 release of Trouble Is … 25, a re-recording of his 1997 breakthrough album, which had four top 10 hits when it was originally issued: “Slow Ride,” “Somehow, Somewhere, Someway,” “Everything is Broken,” and “Blue on Black.” There have been seven other studio recordings since then, and while he’s still mostly a Strat player, some other instruments have joined his armada, too. And Dumbles … he has lots of Dumbles.
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Old No-Paint
This 1961 Fender Stratocaster has been Shepherd’s No. 1 since he bought it right as his career began to take off. Like all of his electrics, it stays strung with Ernie Balls—.011, .014, .018, .038, .048, and .058.—and is played with Dunlop heavy picks.
Tone Twin
Fender built Shepherda nearly identical version of his 1961 to save wear and tear on the original. Pretty exacting custom relic work!
Jimi's Jammer
Here’s a Fender Jimi Hendrix Monterey Strat. The Fullerton giant made just more than 200 replicas of the guitar that Jimi played and burned onstage at the Monterey Pop Festival, in 1967. When Shepherd got the guitar he immediately had Fender make him a custom neck with jumbo frets and a backwards headstock. Graph Tech saddles were also added to this work of art.
Down to the Crossroads
Inspired by the famed Mississippi Delta intersection where Robert Johnson, by fable, cut his deal with the devil, this Strat with the Highway 61 and Highway 49 signs was created by Shepherd and Fender Custom Shop master builder Todd Krause over two years, and completed in 2015. This distinctive relic’d instrument has an alder body, a rosewood fretboard, Graph Tech saddles, and black knobs and pickup covers.
Sunny ’60 Shop
The only thing that’s been changed on this 1960 sunburst Gibson Les Paul is the jack plate and toggle surround. The rest is all original, including the frets.
Shut the Front Door (Or the Cows Will Get Out)
This limited edition reclaimed pinewood Strat’s body came from a barn built in the 1800s in Lake Odessa, Michigan. It has a rosewood neck with a hand-rubbed oil finish and a comfortable, modern C neck profile. Other features include a 9.5"-radius, 25.5" scale rosewood fretboard with 22 medium jumbo frets, three Fender Custom Shop Fat ’50s single-coil Stratocaster pickups with 5-way switching, an unbuffed single-ply black pickguard, a two-point synchronized tremolo bridge with vintage-style stamped steel saddles, Micro-Tilt neck adjustment, and a laser-etched headstock logo.
Sig to Dig
This new Kenny Wayne Shepherd Signature Stratocaster features a chambered ash body, a translucent faded sonic blue lacquer finish, an early ’60s inspired C-shaped maple neck, and a bound rosewood fretboard with a 7.25" radius and block inlay. The neck is “the ultimate copy of the neck on my ’61 Strat,” Shepherd says.
Blue Moves
Here’s Shepherd’s Martin acoustic signature model JC-16KWS. It’s got a maple back and sides, a Sitka spruce top, Martin’s A-frame X scalloped bracing, and a mahogany neck with a low oval profile.
Billy Gibbons Wants This Guitar
The good Rev. Gibbons’ eyes popped out when Shepherd unveiled this one on an earlier Ryman gig, and BFG named it “Copperboy.” It’s another Fender Custom Shop Masterbuilt Stratocaster by Todd Krause, with lipstick pickup covers and a reverse position for the bridge pickup.
Old Tones, New Tools
Except for that genuine Roger Mayer Octavia, KWS gets his blues-rock tones using some contemporary tools. There’s a modded Venus Witch Wah by Steve Monk, a Sir Henry Vibe by Tinsley Audio, a Boss TU-3, an Analog Man King of Tone and Bi-Chorus, a gen II Klon KTR, and a Free The Tone Future Factory and Ambi Space Digital Reverb. All pedals are routed through a Voodoo Labs PX-8 Plus programable switcher. A Radial JD7 routes the signal to his three amps, and two Voodoo Lab Pedal Power X4s supply the juice.
Rumbles with Dumbles
For this tour, Shepherd uses a trio of white Fender amps and cabs hot-rodded by the late Alexander “Howard” Dumble—just a few of the 11 Dumbles in his collection. These are a Pro Reverb (called the Ultra/Rockphonix), a Bassman (called the Slidewinder), and a Band Master (called the AC763).
Dialing in Dumbles
Here are close-ups of the settings Shepherd applies to his three Dumble-built amps.
![Rig Rundown: Joe Bonamassa [2022]](https://www.premierguitar.com/media-library/rig-rundown-joe-bonamassa.jpg?id=31202568&width=1245&height=700&quality=85&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C0)
After moving back to New York City, Joe Bonamassa spent some lockdown time in Germano Studios in Manhattan’s NoHo neighborhood, tightly winding the music for his latest album, Time Clocks. His longtime producer Joe Shirley had to work with the powerhouse guitarist remotely, from his home in Australia. Yet the result is as seamlessly Bonamassa as ever, with riveting guitar work that has echoes ranging from Africa to Led Zeppelin. “My ADD transcends into my musical life,” the other JB told longtime Premier Guitar contributor Joe Charupakorn in our December feature. “It’s a very different record for me. It’s not a blues record, for sure. I just try to make records that don’t bore me all the way through—we’ve got this groove covered, we’ve got that groove covered, let’s put a sorbet in, something out of left field.”
They don’t serve sorbet at Nashville’s hallowed Ryman Auditorium music hall—although I’m putting that in their suggestion box. But Bonamassa did dish out plenty of guitar flambé at his August 2 headliner there. And melded the music of Time Clocks with a selection of some of his favorite classic and original blues. PG’s JB—that’s me—connected with Joe onstage before the show, where I also did a Rig Rundown with that other guy with my initials in 2018.
This time, there were some new members of Bonamassa’s ever-growing-and-shrinking collection of gear—which he spoke about at length earlier this year with Cory Wong on the rhythm guitar kingpin’s Wong Notes podcast for PG—pressed into service, including some recent-arrival Les Pauls, of course, and perhaps the most covetable collection of historic badass amps ever played on the Ryman stage. But rareness, novelty, or familiarity isn’t what determines which toys come out to play. Bonamassa starts by building a rough set list, and then chooses the right instrument and amps for each song. So, watch, look, and listen!
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High-Flying “B”
Joe’s 1968 Fender Telecaster Thinline has a B-bender and a Seymour Duncan the Bludgeon pickup set. The new pickup outfit is patterned after the distinctive sounding ones in JB’s ’51 Nocaster and are going into production soon. The maestro strings most of his electrics with Ernie Ball .011 to .052 sets.
Ol’ ’55
Here’s another 1955 Strat in the fleet, joining the hardtail the JB’s named “the Best.” He keeps this one tuned to D and it's stringed with a slightly heavier gauge of Ernie Balls: .011 to .056.
A Bonnie Strat
That ain’t vandalism. It’s love and friendship. Joe asked his friend Bonnie Bramlett, the vocalist who made rock and roots history as half of the famed duo Delaney and Bonnie, to engrave her name on this 1955 Fender Stratocaster—which is now known as “Bonnie.”
About Face, ’55
Here’s the front side of the “Bonnie” Strat.
Les Paul for Sale
JB was asked to play this 1960 Gibson Les Paul Standard on tour until it is auctioned off for charity. The auction has yet to be announced. And while ’58s and ’59s have long been consider the Holy Grail of Les Paul, anyone who’s heard Clapton’s tone on the so-called Beano album knows that ’60s are also the bomb. Coming up on the collectability scale: late ’60s Pauls. Don’t believe it? Play one!
A Great ’58
This 1958 Gibson Les Paul Standard is a recent purchase. At some point the original tuners were swapped out for Schallers, and that’s how Joe’s kept it.
The Les Paul Under the Stairs
Dig this early 1960 Gibson Les Paul Standard, which Joe has named “Royal Albert.” It was recently found in an under-the-stairs cupboard in England. After a bit of work and the addition of some PAFs, it’s got a new life on tour.
For Another $20….
What’s the difference between Gibson’s ES-335 and ES-355? Back in the day, in practical terms, it was 20 bucks. But another difference is that the 355 and the 345 came in stereo-wired versions. And the optional Varitone circuitry—Gibson’s chicken-head-dial-controlled tone filter—for ES-355 models was typically standard. That makes this all-stock 1964 Gibson ES-355 very rare. There’s no Varitone and it came wired out of the factory in mono.
Bicentennial ’Bird
It ain’t no eagle, but this all-stock 1976 Gibson Firebird Bicentennial salutes in open G. They were only issued for three years and sell for $5,000 plus these days. Plus, this special run were all adorned with a white pickguard where a red-white-and-blue Firebird logo nests.
Amos the Imposter
The Gibson Custom Shop provided Bonamassa this detailed replica of his remarkable, all-original 1958 Gibson Flying V. Check out the run Epiphone did on the historic V back in 2017.
Back in Black
This 1955—that year again!—Stratocaster may be the first black Fender Strat. It was formerly owned by Howard Reed, the guitarist who replaced Cliff Gallup in Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps. Back in 1988, an 11-year-old Joe had a poster of this very guitar on his bedroom wall, and now he owns it. For the past several years, this guitar has made JB’s annual trip to the Ryman and you can visit the black ’55 any time you enter the Mother Church.
Adventures in Ampland
Seven amazing amps? Yeah, that should do it. And Joe combines them to recreate all the sterling tones on his albums. There’s a 1979 Dumble Overdrive Special running into a 2x12 Dumble Cab with JB-85 Celestions. The speakers are rated at 85 watts, natch, and 8 ohms, and are among the loudest speakers Celestion’s ever made. JB’s 2006 Dumble Overdrive Special combo blasts through the same-model speaker. There’s a Mesa/Boogie Revolver rotary speaker cabinet in the mix, too, with a single JB-85, and an ’84 Overdrive Special with the same. Two of his signature Fender Twin Reverbs figure in, and while these usually come in tweed, Joe had this pair tuxedo’d in black.
Four off the Floor
And if you’ve had trouble finding Marshall Silver Jubilee 100-watt heads lately, it might be because Bonamassa has four of them, running two at a time into a Van Weelden 4x12 cab, split internally to run as two 2x12s juiced with EVM12Ls.
More Marshalls
Joe Bonamassa’s Pedalboard
JB keeps a very orderly guitar pedalboard. It’s currently stocked with a Way Huge Overrated Special, a Tone Mechanics/Racksystems Loop Box, a Tone Mechanics/Racksystems Splitter, a Fulltone Supa-Trem, a Hughes & Kettner Rotosphere, a Boss DD-2 Digital Delay, an MXR Micro Flanger, an Ibanez TS808 Tube Screamer, an Electro-Harmonix Micro POG, a Dunlop Joe Bonamassa Fuzz Face, a Lehle A/B/C switcher, a Dunlop signature Cry Baby Wah in Pelham blue, and an on/off/fast/slow dual switch for the Mesa Boogie Revolver. Juice comes from a Voodoo Labs Pedal Power 2 Plus. Joe uses KLOTZ cables and custom Dunlop Jazz III picks.
Slash and Myles Kennedy have been teaming up since 2010, when Kennedy was chosen to front Slash’s touring band. Since then, they’ve made four studio albums together.
In fact, he single-handedly brought the Les Paul back into vogue, and rare models began fetching unheard of sums. With supergroup Velvet Revolver and his solo project, Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators, the Les Paul has remained Slash’s inseparable partner-in-crime. Gibson named Slash their global brand ambassador and has collaborated with him on 17 signature Les Pauls since 1997. So, it’s not surprising that when Gibson Records launched, Slash was the first artist they contacted.
The new album from Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators, 4, is Gibson Records’ inaugural release. It features Todd Kerns on bass, Brent Fitz on drums, Frank Sidoris on rhythm guitar, and Kennedy on vocals. Kennedy is also known as the lead singer for Alter Bridge. It’s less common knowledge that Kennedy is a monster guitarist with a degree in jazz studies and commercial music. In his formative years, Kennedy led Cosmic Dust, a fusion band that was the vehicle for his Frank Gambale meets Mike Stern pyrotechnics. Kennedy doesn’t play guitar on 4, but when they’re on tour, to avoid straining his voice, Kennedy locks himself in the hotel room and sheds endlessly.
Slash ft. Myles Kennedy and The Conspirators - The River Is Rising (Official Music Video)
Spirit Animals
The songwriting process for 4 began during the Living the Dream tour in 2019 in the dead time before and after shows. “It’s not a rule but I always write stuff for the next record while we’re on the road with the previous,” says Slash. “A lot of this new record was initiated in that process. In dressing rooms before the show, on the bus sometimes—though usually not on the bus because everybody is all over the place—and definitely in the hotel rooms. Because I never really go anywhere. I just stay in my room. I record stuff onto my phone—the cat’s out of the bag [laughs]. When I bring something to soundcheck and the band starts to jam on an idea, I record from the board.”
Slash is a self-taught zookeeper and has housed and cared for countless wild animals, so it makes sense that animals served as inspirations for some of the songs on 4. He got his first pet rat, a black-and-white creature named Mickey, from disco/funk legend Sly Stone. One of Slash’s anacondas, Sam, resides at the Nashville Zoo, and whenever Slash is in town, he’ll go visit him. Once, Slash snuck his mountain lion, Curtis, into the opulent Four Seasons hotel after the Northridge earthquake displaced him.
Given that history, it’s fitting that the album closer, “Fall Back to Earth,” began while Slash was on safari in South Africa at Kruger National Park, inspired by the sounds of monkeys and hippos he heard in the nighttime as he looked up at the stars in the majestic sky. “I took my guitar to the park, yes [laughs],” says Slash. “I just came up with this melody, which was the main theme of ‘Fall Back to Earth,’ and I stuck with that. I loved it because it came from a place of inspiration because of the environment that I was in.”
“For me, as a sort of semi-insecure guitar player, there are things that I did want to go back and fix, but Dave was like, ‘Come on, man.’ I was like, ‘I know, I know.’” —Slash
Kennedy, a self-proclaimed softie, also took inspiration from an animal. He wrote “Fill My World” from the imagined viewpoint of his Shih Tzu, Mozart. “It was a few years ago and I was on tour. My wife had come out to see me, and we were both trying to get home. We have a little dog named Mozart and he usually stays with friends or a dog sitter. They dropped him off thinking we’d be back in an hour or two. Unfortunately, a storm rolled in, so we basically got stuck. As the storm hit, we were freaking out because we were watching on the cameras. He was at the house by himself and the thunder and the lightning—which the dogs just hate—were just scaring the hell out of him. You could see it. It was kind of heartbreaking so I thought it would be interesting to write a song from his perspective. What might have been going through his head at that point.” At one point in the song, an audible crack in Kennedy’s voice can be heard.
Enter Dave Cobb
After the songs were written, it was time to make studio arrangements. “I talked to a couple of trusted executives in the industry that I know, and I said, ‘I’m looking for a good rock ’n’ roll producer,’” recalls Slash. “And, of course, the list was very short. I had four guys to look at. Two of them were interesting, two of them were, no.”
Grammy-winning producer Dave Cobb easily got the gig. “We just talked about records we loved,” recalls Cobb. “We talked about how records used to be made where you came into the room and recorded to tape with no separation and played as if you were a band playing live instead of making it a big procedure. And that’s how we hit it off. I remember growing up and learning how to play guitar, and Slash was huge to me. I was a little nervous to talk to him.”
TIDBIT: Slash and his band, Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators, recorded 4 at Nashville’s iconic RCA Studio A. Dave Cobb produced the album, which is also the inaugural release for Gibson Records.
“He wanted to record a rock band live in the studio and I wanted to be a rock band that recorded live in the studio, so we hit it off right away,” says Slash. The band set up at Nashville’s RCA Studio A, a legendary space that Chet Atkins’ built where every country music luminary from Dolly Parton to Waylon Jennings has recorded. “The vibe in that place is so inspiring, I have to say … everybody’s recorded there,” says Slash. “Steve Cropper’s got an office upstairs. I never got to meet him but just the fact that he was in the building was just so cool.”
Guitars, bass, and drums were recorded live in one room, and Kennedy did his vocals live in an adjacent booth. Everyone was at ease, just rockin’ out, which made for a particularly stellar vocal performance from Kennedy. “I thought I was just laying down vocals for scratch tracks. I thought I was just helping guide the band, so they know, ‘Okay we’re on the verse, or we’re on the chorus.’ Then I assumed that in a week or so we’d go in, and I’d re-cut the vocal,” says Kennedy. “But Dave was happy with them. That’s the way they get a singer to relax—tell him it’s just a scratch track (laughs).”
Cobb’s ability to embrace the moment also relaxed Slash’s usual quest for perfection. “For me, as a sort of semi-insecure guitar player, there are things that I did want to go back and fix, but Dave was like, ‘Come on, man.’ I was like, ‘I know, I know,’” Slash says.
Slash’s Gear on '4'
One of the most expressive combos of all-time: Slash and his inseparable Les Paul. He wrote one of the songs from 4 while at a game park in Africa. “I took my guitar to the park, yes,” he says with a laugh.
Photo by Annie Atlasman
Guitars
- Gibson ’59 reissue Les Paul (2)
- Gibson ’68 reissue Les Paul Custom
- Gibson ’69 reissue Flying V
- Kris Derrig Les Paul replica (1986)
- Most of Slash’s guitars are outfitted with his signature Seymour Duncan APH-2 Alnico II Pro Slash humbuckers
Strings & Picks
- Ernie Ball Slash Signature (.011–.048)
- Dunlop custom picks 1.14 mm
Amps
- Marshall Silver Jubilee 2555 JCM Slash Signature 100-watt head
- 1960 Marshall 4x12 cabinet loaded with Celestion Vintage 30s
Effects
- MXR EVH Phase 90
- MXR CAE Boost/Overdrive
- Dunlop Heil Talk Box
- Hammond Leslie
- Hughes & Kettner Tube Rotosphere
Dangerous Times
When Slash was in Guns N’ Roses, they were called “The Most Dangerous Band in the World” because of their hedonistic excesses. Now, older and wiser, Slash isn’t quite as carefree. For the recording session, to avoid public exposure and reduce the chance of getting Covid, the band hired a tour bus to bring them from Vegas to Nashville.
The bus first picked up Slash in L.A. and brought him to Vegas, where most of the other band members live. Myles drove into Vegas from Washington. Upon arriving in Sin City, they met up at a clinic, and after all testing negative, got on the bus and headed to Nashville. After a night’s rest, they got straight to business the next morning. At a breakneck rate of two songs per day, 90 percent of the record was done in five days. And then on the sixth day, when Slash was gearing up for some guitar overdubs, he got an unexpected call from Kennedy.
“He called me on my cell phone, which was odd to begin with,” recalls Slash. “Then he said that he had tested positive. Because we had to do regular testing, I was like, ‘Oh fuck.’ I couldn’t understand how that could possibly have happened because we hadn’t gone anywhere. Consequently, Brent, Todd, and one of the engineers at the studio were positive as well.”
Slash is synonymous with vintage Les Paul guitars and has collaborated on 17 signature models since 1997. Here he’s playing a ’59 reissue at the Fillmore Detroit with Myles Kennedy in 2015.
Photo by Ken Settle
Kennedy was also baffled. “The first time we tested was like three days before we got there and the next time we tested was the morning we walked into the studio. Everybody was fine and I was fine,” Kennedy recalls. “Then about 24 hours later I started to notice some strange symptoms. I thought they were allergies initially and, especially since I just tested, I thought, ‘There’s no way it’s Covid.’ But unfortunately, as the symptoms continued to evolve, I realized it was something a little more serious.”
Everyone had to go into quarantine, but that didn’t mean the music making had to stop. “I started to do what little guitar overdubs I had—I had some harmonies, and some sitar parts,” says Slash. “Then two days later I tested positive. It was inevitable because we were all living in the same house and sharing a communal kitchen. The house was now effectively called ‘Covid Manor.’” Only Sidoris avoided getting Covid.
Luckily, the setup of their accommodations made it possible to quarantine and still be productive. “It was perfect,” says Kennedy. “I had a little separate house outside the house. I think it was like a pool house or something. I ended up recording Todd’s vocals because Todd ended up getting sick as well. He would come out during the day, and I would set up my DAW and we would do the backing vocals.”
“Spirit Love,” “Whatever Gets You By,” and “Fall Back to Earth” were all finished in the pool house, and then the files were sent to Cobb.
“Seeing him actually in the studio, it was a ‘Holy Shit’ level of guitar playing. I knew he was incredible, and I knew he was a legend, but he’s way better than that when you see him in person.” —Dave Cobb
Dumble Destiny
Cobb’s gear inventory is impressive, and during the sessions Slash crossed paths with a true bucket-list item. “It was the first time I consciously knew I was playing through a Dumble amp. I’ve been hearing that name forever, but I didn’t know what it was,” admits Slash. “[Cobb] introduced me to a Fender that Dumble had customized, and it sounds fuckin’ amazing. I didn’t actually record anything with it, but it just sounded really good.”
Cobb recalls, “You know, Slash sounds good through a lot of things. He sounded great through that Dumble. When he plugged into it, it sounded like Slash—rock ’n’ roll, over the top, classic. It sounded like a great rock ’n’ roll amp when he played through it.”
Sadly, Alexander Dumble passed away in January, a few weeks after this PG interview with Slash took place. It seems almost like fate that their worlds collided shortly before Dumble’s passing. Slash commissioned Dumble to build him an amp, which may be one of the last projects the famed builder completed. “I got in touch with Alex after the session and he actually did a Fender for me,” Slash says. “It sounds really great. He’s not easy to get in touch with or to get him to do something, it became very apparent. So it was an honor to have him do something for me. But I didn’t know the history before. There was some discrepancy over the cost of it for a second, but he and I got to be good friends as a result of that. I didn’t know how much it cost, I thought five meant five-hundred bucks [laughs].”
Photo by Annie Atlasman
While Slash enjoys his Dumble amp—the new discovery—he stuck to a tried-and-true formula for 4. His iconic Marshall Silver Jubilee 100-watt heads into a 4x12 straight cabinet with Celestion Vintage 30s was the rig of choice.
For guitars, Slash had his staples at the ready. “I used my Kris Derrig replica, which is like my go-to guitar for recording,” he says. “But I also used a ’69 reissue Flying V, which I got last Christmas, that sounds great on a couple songs. I used two ’59 reissues, one apiece on two different songs, a ’68 Custom reissue on one song, and that was basically the setup.”
As Cobb put it, it doesn’t really matter what the gear is: Slash is going to sound like Slash. “Slash’s tone—the way he plays through a Silver Jubilee—is the ideal tone for Slash, you know what I mean?
“I’ll tell you what’s really cool. I know from being a fan, how good he is as a guitar player, and as a writer, and all of that,” Cobb continues. “But seeing him actually in the studio, it was a ‘Holy Shit’ level of guitar playing. I knew he was incredible, and I knew he was a legend, but he’s way better than that when you see him in person. I mean the solos on the record are live and he’s going for it, and it came out so classic and timeless. And his playing has so much feel and heart and soul. I didn’t realize how much better he is than I even thought he was. That was probably the biggest revelation. When he plugs in, it’s like, “I know why he’s Slash.” I was in the room with the engineer and the assistant in the control room, and we were all like, ‘Holy shit. This is way bigger and better than we even thought it was going to be.’”
Slash ft.Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators - Anastasia | Live in Sydney
Slash is a master of coaxing an impressive array of sounds out of his beloved Les Pauls. In the intro to “Anastasia,” he gets an acoustic vibe by using a fingerstyle approach combined with the Les Paul’s rhythm pickup setting. Once the distortion kicks in, he launches into a post neo-classical, pedal-point riff, before launching into all-out carnage once Myles Kennedy’s vocals enter.