![Foo Fighters’ Chris Shiflett Rig Rundown [2024]](https://www.premierguitar.com/media-library/youtube.jpg?id=53453295&width=1245&height=700&quality=85&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C0)
The last time PGcaught up with Chris Shiflett, Chris Kies paid a visit to Foo Fighters headquarters at Studio 606. This time, he meets Shiflett in Cincinnati, onstage at Great American Ballpark ahead of the Foos’ July 25 headlining date at the stadium. It was a hot one out there, but that didn’t stop our jeans-wearing Kies and towel-drying Shifty from tackling the guitarist’s new and improved 2024 tour rig. You’ll see some familiar faces, but some new ones too, including a sharp ’80s shredder and a pink partscaster. The biggest change of all comes in the form of a Dave Friedman-designed pedalboard, an impressive rackmount setup with a massive RJM switcher to hit all the set pieces. Plus, Shifty gives some juicy teasers on future signature gear collabs and talks about how hosting Shred With Shifty has impacted his own playing.
Brought to you by D’Addario.
Leave It to Clever
The beloved high-end version of Shifty’s signature Fender Telecaster Deluxe is equipped with Lindy Fralin P-90s, a rosewood fretboard, and Shifty’s Arsenal pin on the strap—haters be damned.
Eat the Rich
Shifty was on tour in Washington, D.C., when PG’s Jason Shadrick sent him the Reverb listing for this 1983 B.C. Rich Mockingbird. As luck would have it, the ’bird was just north in Maryland, and the seller agreed to drive the axe down and deliver it in person. Shifty swapped in some Dimarzio Super Distortion pickups, but the wiring was a bit screwy, so the kind folks at B.C. Rich reached out and arranged to fix things up. This one has D’Addario .010–.046 strings.
Pink Partscaster
This simple, eye-catching partscaster is an homage to Shifty’s favorite players from the ’80s, chief among them Eddie Van Halen. It has a single Seymour Duncan SH-4 JB Model humbucker, a Floyd Rose tremolo system, and a lone volume knob. The online-ordered headstock has Shiflett’s name on it, just so no one takes it by accident. Eric Chaz at Eric’s Guitar Shop in Van Nuys, California, assembled this pink plucker for Shiflett.
Shifty’s still using this one to workshop pieces of Van Halen’s tapping work on “Eruption,” and the haters can eat their hearts out, because perfect imitation isn’t the goal. “If it’s loud and you do it with some measure of confidence, it kind of works,” he says.
Kickass Korina
This Skynyrd-style Gibson Explorer has been hot rodded with a Seymour Duncan ’59 humbucker and another Duncan SH-4 JB Model.
Original Recipe
This is the original Fender Chris Shiflett Telecaster Deluxe, the guitarist’s first signature model which was designed and priced for accessibility to all players. This one got upgraded with a prized Tom Holmes humbucker. Stay tuned: Shifty teases that a new, American-made Shiflett signature might be coming by end of year….
Sticker Magnet
Shifty picked up this Gibson ES-335 around the tour cycle for One by One, and he’s since decorated it with a few stickers. This one’s got his classic Seymour Duncan ’59/JB humbucker combo, and stays in drop-D tuning for songs like “Monkey Wrench” and “Everlong.”
Fabulous '57
This is Shiflett’s “most vintage-y” vintage guitar: a 1957 Gibson Les Paul. He initially planned to reserve it for studio use, but fellow Foo guitarist Pat Smear convinced him to bring it out on the road. It started out as a goldtop, but now sports a finish that shows the wood and three-piece construction. It’s still loaded with the original pickups.
Stack City
Shiflett runs a beastly quartet of half-stacks, with two Friedman BE-100 heads and two Vox AC30 heads, all accompanied by matching 4x12 cabs. Shifty keeps the Friedmans in 50-watt mode, but look out—there could be a custom Shiflett Friedman amp coming down the line.
Death of the Tap Dance
Shiflett finally got tired of tap dancing around his pedalboard, and called up Dave Friedman for some help prepping a tour-ready rig. “He said, ‘Oh, so you decided to finally get a big boy rig?’” Shiflett laughs. Friedman designed it around an RJM Mastermind GT/22, with all of Shifty’s pedals housed in a rack sidestage. It took some getting used to, but now Shiflett’s built up the muscle memory to navigate the system. For adding new sounds, he’ll text his tech, Mark Lubetski, which settings or sounds he wants for certain “scenes,” and Mark will program them in.
Pedal Playpen
Shiflett’s pedal setup takes up two shelves in this side-stage rack. On the lower shelf, there are two Strymon Decos and two Strymon Timelines—one of each assigned to either the Voxes or the Friedmans—plus an Electro-Harmonix Micro POG, a Boss CE-2w, a Suhr microMIDI Control, and a Friedman Power Grid 10.
On the upper shelf, Shifty keeps the fun stuff: a JHS Muffuletta, Xotic EP Booster, Origin Effects Cali76, Fulltone WahFull, Klon KTR, Andy Green Pedals Seaverb, MXR EVH Phase 90, and MXR Flanger.
Shop Chris Shiflett's Foo Fighters Rig
Gibson Explorer
D’Addario .010–.046
Seymour Duncan SH-4 JB Model Humbucker
Seymour Duncan ’59 Humbucker
Gibson ES-335
1957 Gibson Les Paul
Friedman BE-100
Vox AC30
Strymon Deco
Strymon TimeLine
Electro-Harmonix Micro POG
Boss CE-2w
Suhr microMIDI Control
Friedman Power Grid 10
JHS Muffuletta
Xotic EP Booster
Origin Effects Cali76
Fulltone WahFull
MXR EVH Phase 90
MXR Flanger
![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.
Brought to you by D’Addario XS Strings.
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.”
