![Rig Rundown: Blackberry Smoke's Charlie Starr & Paul Jackson [2023]](https://www.premierguitar.com/media-library/rig-rundown-blackberry-smoke-s-charlie-starr-and-paul-jackson-2023.jpg?id=33228971&width=1245&height=700&quality=85&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C0)
Right now, they’re in Europe, but Atlanta-based rockers with a distinctly Southern musical accent, Blackberry Smoke, smoked Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium for two nights in February before jumping the pond.
Their latest album, You Hear Georgia, was produced by Dave Cobb in Nashville, and hit the top of the Billboard Americana/Folk chart when it was released in mid-2021. PG’s John Bohlinger caught up with guitarists Charlie Starr and Paul Jackson before their sold-out show at the Ryman to run down their ever-expanding universe of gear.
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Battered, Not Fried
This 1956 Gibson Les Paul Junior was professionally refinished in the ’70s, but Charlie Starr has put some serious miles on this one-pickup wonder. The battered badass with a dog ear P-90 and all his electrics are strung with D’Addario XL Nickel Wound strings, .010–.046. He uses InTuneGP Heavy picks and a ceramic Charlie Starr Signature Osanippa Creek Slide.
Like Ernest Tubb and other guitarists from the classic annals of entertainment, Starr has a greeting on the back of his ’56 Junior for the fans.
Barnburner
For some semi-hollow tone and feel, Starr goes with his stock 1964 Gibson ES-335 in Cherry Red with a Bigsby. The guitar belonged to a friend’s grandfather, and when Starr acquired it, he says, “It had gouges at the C, G, and D,” positioning his hand over the open chord shapes. He had it re-fretted by Stan Williams in Georgia, who told Starr, “This guitar looks like it's been sitting outside in a barn since 1964. And I don't know how the dude was able to get a bird to shit inside that f-hole.”
Physical Advantage
Starr maintains that this 1965 Fender Esquire in factory black, like his other single pickup guitars, sounds larger than most as there are less magnets interfering with the string vibration. He adds, “I’m told that it’s a physics thing. And I’m a physicist, so I subscribe to that theory.”
The Rest of the Best
Here are the Starr's other main stage rides (clockwise from the top left): a 1956 Gibson Les Paul Jr., a 1963 Fender Esquire, a Fender American Nashville B-Bender Telecaster, and a 1964 Gibson SG Jr..
Tone Trifecta
“This is on all the time,” Starr says of his Echopark Vibramatic 23, which he pairs with a tall cab. “It's basically a tweed Deluxe, and it adds that 6V6 creamy sweetness all the time.” The maker of Blackberry Smoke’s 50-watt Germino heads, Greg Germino, personally recommended this Germino Lead 55LV (left) to Starr, and is paired with a 4x12 cab. And the other Germino is a Master Model 50.
Charlie Starr's Pedalboard
Starr’s pedalboard features a Cry Baby Wah, a PCE-FX Aluminum Falcon Klon clone, an Analog Man Sun Face, Chase Tone Secret Preamp—“a preamp that accidentally made everyone’s signal a little sweeter,”—Wampler Faux Tape Echo, Fulltone Supa-Trem, DryBell Vibe Machine, Analog Man-modded MXR Phase 45, and a Polytune 3. XTS XAct Tone Solutions supplies the juice. Starr tapes a few of the pedals’ knobs to make sure his settings don’t go missing in action.
Paul Jackson's Ol’ Reliable
Paul Jackson’s number one is his 1979 Les Paul, which has been modded with a Seymour Duncan ’59 neck pickup and a Pearly Gates bridge pickup. He says he got it at a Guitar Center in Atlanta about 18 years ago—it also sports Dickey Betts’ autograph. Jackson strings this and all his electrics with D’Addario .010-.046s.
Black Magic
This black Gibson SG Standard—one of Jackson’s pair of SGs—was a gift from Frank Hannon of the band Tesla, who signed the back of it.
Gibsons Galore
The other three touring staples for Jackson include a 1978 ES-335, a 40th Anniversary Les Paul Ebony 1991, and a 1998 Gibson SG Les Paul Custom Shop Historic.
De-Modded For Classic Tones
One of the two amps Jackson tours with is a pre-’85 Marshall JCM800 50-watt with a stock 4x12 cab. You’ll see it has a sticker that says “Paul Jackson Mod”—he had it modded at one point, but later took it to Andrews Amp Lab in Atlanta to have them “turn it back into a Marshall.” Along with the Marshall, Jackson’s Vox AC30 is on “all the time.”
Paul Jackson's Pedalboard
Jackson and Starr’s pedalboards have more than a few things in common—Jackson’s also equips his with a Cry Baby Wah, Wampler Faux Tape Echo, and a PCE-FX Aluminum Falcon Klon clone—although Jackson’s is an Aluminum Falcon III. Other pedals on his board include a Radial Twin-City ABY Amp Switcher, JHS 3 Series Reverb, MXR EVH Phase 90, Way Huge Overrated Special Overdrive, and an Ibanez Mini Tube Screamer. Power comes from a Truetone power supply. Of the EVH Phaser, Jackson says, “If you don’t know what you’re doing, hit the phase pedal. nobody will ever know.”
Amyl and the Sniffers are pragmatic. They rock fast and write and record even faster. Legend has it they knocked out their debut EP, 2016’s Giddy Up, from start to finish in just 12 hours in the band’s shared home. And their Australian Recording Industry Award-winning (Best Rock Album) self-titled full-length debut is a sweltering, swaggering, scallywag’s set of 11 songs that clock in at 30 minutes. During Australia’s Covid shelter-in mandate, the frenzied foursome locked themselves in their home once again to pen 13 rambunctious-yet-buffed jams that combine blazers with slow burns. Regardless of tempo, danger lurks in their every note and word. With the disregard of Iggy, the venom of Lemmy, and power of Angus, their live performances are tornadic events. Lead singer Amy Taylor is the charismatic lightning, while guitarist Declan Martens, bassist Gus Romer, and drummer Bryce Wilson are the locomotive thunder.
Hours before Amyl and the Sniffers’ headlining set at Nashville’s Brooklyn Bowl, Martens invited PG’s Chris Kies stage right to chronicle his Hemi-like setup. In this episode, we meet his paired live instruments from Gibson, unwrap the story behind his “Excalibur” pedal, and understand Martens’ MO to work smarter, not harder.
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Exploring the Explorer
For nearly every show with Amyl and the Sniffers, Declan Martens played a raggedy Strat that was loaded with a Seymour Duncan Hot Rails in the bridge. And on top of that, it’s been featured on all their recordings. That changed in April 2022 when Gibson approached Martens to test drive some of their models. He landed on a daring pair with roots in 1958 that includes this Gibson Explorer in antique natural. It has all-mahogany construction with a rosewood fretboard. The stock Burstbucker 2 (neck) and Burstbucker 3 (bridge) pickups are in place, but the neck humbucker has been disconnected so he can use the selector as a kill switch.
A V for D That’s in Slot B
The second gift from Gibson was this brand-new Flying V that employs the same recipe as the Explorer, with a mahogany body and neck in antique natural, a rosewood fretboard, and Burstbuckers 2 and 3. Martens notes in the Rundown that the Explorer has been seeing more stage time and the V has been reserved for backup duties, but admits that could change at any point.
He once went with coated Elixir strings for their longevity, but he’s been trialing .010–.046 sets from the D’Addario NYXL and Ernie Ball Paradigm families. Martens did mention that he played .010–.052s on the Strat, but found that Gibson’s compact scale length allowed him to reduce to standard .10s. They typically stay in half-step-down tuning, but do venture into drop C# for “Capital.”
M & M
That’s Martens and Marshall. He prefers plugging into JMPs for his love of ’70s rock and punk, but for this U.S. run he’s backlining with a pair of modern JCM800s. Each head is set to stun and firing through a deuce of Marshall 4x12s (1960AVs on top and 1960BVs on bottom) that are carrying Marshall G12 Vintage by Celestion speakers. Martens remarks that he’d ideally run the heads into Marshall 1960AX and BX 4x12s, because they come with 25W Celestion G12M-25 Greenbacks that are more “AC/DC than Guns N' Roses.”
Love At First Sight
Before the band’s first international performance, at The Great Escape festival in Brighton, UK, Martens told their tour manager he needed to find a volume boost/gain pedal. As luck would have it, at the end of the street they were staying on sat a pawnshop. In one of its window displays rested this nondescript home-build. A spontaneously serendipitous spark hit Martens and he purchased the stomp. He plugged it into his rig and was floored: “It wasn’t just something that I liked. I was like ‘holy shit, I love this.’”
Declan says he’s deduced from tinkering that this is a hybrid clone combo that sits between a MXR Distortion+ and DOD Overdrive Preamp 250. He describes it as being a “high midrange boost with hectic gain.” He claims it’s the secret sauce for the studio and values it too much to tour with. However, he did have it in a small case for this run and is tempted to put it into action because he’s missing it.
Declan Marten’s Pedalboard
Declan doesn’t need much to party—proven with this baby board that holds a MXR Carbon Copy Mini, an always-on Electro-Harmonix Soul Food, and a clone (built by Open Ear Audio) of his beloved booster/gain gooser. The TC Electronic PolyTune 2 Noir keeps his Gibbys in check and is actually third in line behind the clone and Soul Food. Everything hits the front of the amp, as he doesn’t use effects loops to keep his tech time at a minimum.
Thrash metal has seen a resurgence since its ’80s heyday. Megadeth earned a Grammy for their 2016 album Dystopia, and very recently Stranger Things’ brave headbanger Eddie Munson brandished a B.C. Rich Warlock for a literally death-defying performance of Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” that catapulted the song into widespread pop-culture consciousness. But for metal purists, Municipal Waste and their cofounding guitarist Ryan Waste, plus their track record of seven mosh-motivating albums over the past 21 years, prove the genre’s brand of battle-axe riffery wasn’t a fad. Sure, the band’s sound has diversified the artform with the subtle incorporation of hardcore breakdowns and punk-rock-like choruses—but everything is still in fifth-gear, baby!
Ahead of their headlining show at Nashville’s Basement East on August 10, PG’s Perry Bean jumped onstage to talk gear. Guitarists Waste and Nick “Nikropolis” Poulos prove they can travel light but stay lethal with a few riff-makers, gassed-up Marshalls, and some green and yellow Japanese drives.
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The Flying M
Ryan Waste is a left-handed shredder and has been plagued his entire career with the limited availability of southpaw speed machines—especially in traditional “metal” models. (He states in the Rundown that Municipal Waste’s early work was recorded on a Strat.) So, what’s the best workaround? Collaborate with a company to build your signature model.
This MW-AX from RIP Custom Guitars is the fifth iteration of his sig. Specs include a mahogany body, a mahogany set neck with a C-shape profile that’s paired with an ebony fretboard that has a 12"-16" compound-radius and 24 Dunlop 6100 jumbo frets. It has a roomier 25.5" scale length, the band’s logo sits at the 12th fret, there are Gotoh tuners up top, a Kahler 2300 Tremolo that unlocks dive bombs, a MEC kill switch for muting, and it screams thanks to a Seymour Duncan JB Trembucker. There’s no volume or tone knobs because, as Waste puts it in the Rundown: “It’s all or nothing, man. That’s me.”
Tower of Terror
“It’s over the top,” admits Waste. “We keep it OTT [laughs].” This slice-n-dice 6-string stays laced up with Ernie Ball Slinkys (.10–.46) and the band exclusively plays in standard tuning. It leans against Waste’s altar of tone. The cabs with the band’s logo are empty and light up, but the other Marshall 4x12s are loaded with Celestion Vintage 30s. Scroll down to learn about the JCM800.
A Marshall with More
Waste has plugged into plenty of heads throughout his career, but he’s never felt more at home than when this 100W 1986 Marshall JCM800 2203 is roaring behind him. The classic head has been supercharged with the V2 preamp socket mod (with the bass setting), giving the 800 a lot more gas and gain.
Green Means Go
Ryan doesn’t waste time with an actual board. As you can see, he’s got an Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer (that’s always on) and a Boss TU-3 Chromatic Tuner—keeping it simple and savage.
A Shred Plank
“These guitars are great for this kind of music,” states Municipal Waste lead stringer Nick Poulos. “They’re shred planks.” Poulos pieced this custom ride together using the base ingredients of an Ibanez RG model, upgraded with DiMarzio pickups and Ibanez’s Edge Zero II tremolo. He rocks Ernie Ball Slinkys (.10–.046) just like Waste.
Master Marshall
Poulos plugs into this 50W 1988 Marshall JCM800 2205 dual-channel head with master controls for presence, volume, and reverb.
Stacks Are Back!
And here’s an impressive look at Poulos powerful riff station, showcasing a similar setup to Waste’s—with two cabs ready to sting and the other two ready to bling.
Nick Poulos’ Pedalboard
Poulos is Municipal Waste’s “pedal guy,” having a proper board and three stompboxes. He runs his guitar into a Boss TU-3 Chromatic Tuner before it hits an Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer for rhythm tones, and a Boss SD-1 Super Overdrive gets engaged for solos.