Rig Rundown: Sunn O V2
We’ve featured loud rigs. We’ve stood strong in front of Matt Pike’s octet of Oranges, been washed over with waves of volume from Angus Young’s nine Marshalls for AC/DC’s “small gig setup” in an arena, trembled from J Mascis’ three plexi full stacks, and even withstood Bonamassa’s barrage of seven amps at the Ryman, but nothing prepared us or compared to the Godzilla-rising-from-the-Pacific roar that is Sunn O)))’s auditory artillery. And it’s more than the sheer sight of 14 amps and 16 cabs or the dishing of deafening decibels; it’s the interplay of these characters and their conductors.
“The third member of the band is the amplifiers!” laughed Greg Anderson in a 2014 interview with PG. “We use vintage Sunn Model Ts from the early ’70s. They’re a crucial part of the show. I’ve got more amps than I have guitars.”
Stephen O’Malley takes a more metaphysical outlook to the connection between him and the thundering Model Ts. “My philosophy is that I’m just part of this bigger circuit of the instrumentation,” he says. “You have, of course, the amplifier valves, the speaker, effects pedals acting like different and various voltage filters, the air in the room, and the feedback generated from all this equipment, so who’s in the band is immaterial.”
We learned more about O’Malley’s perspective when, following a 90-minute drive southeast from Nashville to Pelham, Tennessee, and a short descent into The Caverns, the Sunn O))) guitar tag team welcomed PG’s Chris Kies onstage for an amplifying chat. O’Malley details his signature Travis Bean Designs SOMA 1000A, while Anderson explains how a broken guitar led him to his beloved Les Paul goldtop. Both pay homage and reverence to the eight Sunn Model Ts that form the band’s foundational tonal force, and explain why the LM308-chip Rat influenced their Life Pedal collaboration with EarthQuaker Devices.
Special Silver 25th anniversary edition of the V.3 Life Pedal
Sunn O)) Official Website
Brought to you by D’Addario XPND Pedalboard.
Silverburst Slugger
This is Stephen O’Malley’s signature Travis Bean Designs SOMA 1000A that he co-designed alongside Electrical Guitar Company’s Kevin Burkett and late luthier Travis Bean’s wife, Rita Bean. Burkett revitalized the brand in the early 2010s with the guidance of Rita and Travis’ longtime business partner Marc McElwee.
First off, just like the original TB models, these feature a single piece of 7075-T651 aluminum alloy that runs the length of the guitar’s backside that makes up the headstock, neck, and the rear half of the body. Its scale length is 25.5", the neck radius is 12", and it has a brass nut set for the band’s use of A tuning. The handwound high-gain TB humbuckers are built to Stephen’s specs. The build includes CTS pots, Sprague caps, and Switchcraft hardware. The silverburst finish covers a koa body.
Stephen’s thoughts on the collaboration: “Being honored with a signature model is great, but the bigger achievement or accomplishment is having an interaction with Kevin and the Bean family, who produced an instrument we’re all proud of.”
Strong T
Here’s the standard eye-catching T headstock and brass nut featured on all old and new Travis Bean instruments.
Stephen’s Specter
This transparent devil is an Electrical Guitar Company Ghost that has a 1-piece aluminum neck that covers backup duties for O’Malley. Fun fact: this has the same pickups in it as Steve Albini’s high-output single-coils in his Travis Bean Designs TB500 signature. They are RWRP (reverse-wound, reverse-polarity) to reduce the 60-cycle hum.
Greg’s Lucky Goldtop
While touring with Boris in 2008 or ’09, Greg’s main 1989 Gibson Les Paul goldtop endured a neck fracture. On their next day off, he wandered into the nearest Guitar Center and walked out with the above 2005 Gibson Les Paul Deluxe. It originally had mini humbuckers, but Anderson felt they were “thin-sounding.” So, he swapped them out for a set of DiMarzio P90 Super Distortions, that are actually humbuckers housed in P-90 enclosures for replacements that don’t require routing. He loves the violent output and grind provided by the P90 Super Distortions.
Sonic Protagonists
“The amps are certainly the main characters of the band,” concedes O’Malley. The main protagonists for Sunn O)))’s sonic saga are the eight Sunn Model T heads they set onstage. (Six are on and plugged into, while each member has a dedicated backup.) Stephen mentions in the Rundown that he prefers lower-wattage speakers, but when requesting backlines or renting gear from SIR, they can’t be too picky with the vast amount of cabinets they need. O’Malley runs his Model Ts and ’80s Ampeg MTI SVT through either 4x12s from Sound City or Fryette. The silver-panel Ampeg SVT-VRs flanking both ends of the semi-circle, are being slaved by each member’s MTI SVT, and that signal is hitting their matching Ampeg Heritage SVT-810AV cabinets outfitted with 10" Eminence drivers.
Stephen O’Malley’s Pedalboard
“My concept in playing this music for tone involves many, many, many different gain stages that are all intonated differently depending on the pitch of the sound. There are slight shades of color saturation or grain as if it’s a paint—the shorter bandwidth color gradation or the density of the paint.” All these subtle sweeps of saturation, sustain, and feedback are enlivened and exaggerated with Stephen’s pedal palette. His current collection of slaughtering stomps include the band’s most recent collaboration with EarthQuaker Devices (Life Pedal V3), an Ace Tone FM-3 Fuzz Master, a Pete Cornish G-2, and an EarthQuaker Devices Black Ash. For subtler shadings, he has a J. Rockett Audio Designs Archer.
The EQD Swiss Things creates effects loops to engage the FM-3, G-2, or the Black Ash. In addition, he runs a Roland RE-201 Space Echo through the Swiss Things, too. O’Malley uses the Aguilar Octamizer as a “fun punctuation that comes on once in a while. It abstracts the guitar into minimalist electronics [laughs].” The custom Bright Onion Pedals switcher keeps the amps in sync with phase controls and ground lifts. A Peterson StroboStomp HD keeps his Travis Bean in check. Off to the side of the board is a Keeley-modded Rat that initiated the band’s core sound, plus a Lehle Mono Volume. (Stephen is a Lehle endorsee.) This circuit includes the heralded LM308 chip and was the basis for their partnership with EQD and the Life Pedal series.
Space and Time
Elevated off the stage floor and secured by a stand are O’Malley’s Roland RE-201 Space Echo and Oto Machines BAM Space Generator Reverb.
Greg Anderson’s Pedalboard
“To be honest with you, I try to keep it pretty simple now because I love pedals and have fallen down a lot of rabbit holes with them, but I found myself troubleshooting and having more issues than my sound warranted. When I started with this band, it was just a Rat and tuner pedal, so I try to just bring what I need,” says Anderson. He found a potent pairing with the EQD Life Pedal V2 acting as a boost and running into a vintage Electro-Harmonix Sovtek Civil War Big Muff that creates a “powerful, chewy, ooze” tone. Like O’Malley, he also has a custom Bright Onion Pedals box and an Aguilar Octamizer set to unleash a “ridiculous, beating, fighting, chaotic, sub-bass sound.” An Ernie Ball VP Junior handles dynamics, a Boss TU-2 Chromatic Tuner keeps his goldtop in shape, and an MXR Mini Iso-Brick powers his pedals.
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).
Photo by Aaron Marsh
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."
Rig Rundown: The Sword [2021]
The Austin outfit's 2006 debut Age of Winters combined the rhythmic bounce of Tres Hombres with the power and might of Master of Reality. The cross-pollination of Gibbons and Iommi continued in 2008's Gods of the Earth, with heavier right-hand picking and tempos shading towards thrash-y Priest and Thin Lizzy's "Emerald." Traces of proggy psychedelia, like 2112 Rush and late-'70s Genesis, turned 2010's concept album Warped Riders into a swirling voyage of sci-fi conquest and space exploration, with the music matching the otherworldly narrative. And 2012's Apocryphon saw the band settle into themselves, collectively cherry-picking all the things that worked on the previous three albums. Songs like "Cloak of Feathers" and the title track show their musical certainty. High Country, from three years later, showcases a once-singular-sounding band finding a home between Houston and Birmingham that could be best classified as classic mid-'70s hard rock. And 2018's Used Future—as its cover depicts—shows the band comfortably, calmly, confidently pressing the accelerator of their Bombshell Betty 1952 Buick Super Riviera and racing towards their own horizon.
This fall 2021 run had the Sword members—J.D. Cronise (guitar/vocals), Kyle Shutt (guitars), Bryan Richie (bass/keyboards), and Santiago "Jimmy" Vela III (drums)—handling double duty, with a headline tour woven around opening shows for Primus.
Before their top-of-the-bill show at Nashville's Mercy Lounge, Shutt, Cronise, and Richie showed PG how consolidating gear (and volume) has helped them sharpen their blade.
[Brought to you by D'Addario XPND Pedalboard: http://ddar.io/xpnd.rr]
A Signature Goldtop … but Not That Goldtop
Since our last encounter, in 2014, the Sword guitarist Kyle Shutt has been honored with his very own Reverend Signature KS-1 model. The latest iteration is this eye-catching golden axe that comes with Rev's typical formula—korina body (with a maple cap), 3-piece korina neck, and their bass contour control. (The asymmetrical center block is 1" wider on the bass side than Reverend's similar Manta Ray.)
Standing it apart from other Rev doublecuts and offering some of Kyle's tonal thumbprint is the additional master volume (for stutter effects) and the inclusion of his signature Railhammer humbuckers. The bridge model has similar output and clarity to their Hyper Vintage 'bucker, but aims to add in smoother highs and a thicker tone overall. The neck Humcutter is voiced to mimic a hot P-90, but Kyle wanted it beefed up to match the output of his bridge pickup, so he didn't have to adjust settings. (In the Rundown, he mentions Tom Scholz's DiMarzio Super Distortions and 1968 Gibson Les Paul goldtop as reference points for this collaboration with Reverend.)
Kyle plugs into his Laney with a Ray Raydecker custom cable, strings it up with Ernie Ball Skinny Top Heavy Bottom Slinkys (.010–.052), and is tuned to C standard.
Heads Up!
Other hallmarks of Shutt's sig is that the headstock was the first Reverend to feature an abalone inlay logo, and his John Hancock is etched into the truss rod cover. (All the previous models had the logo painted on, and most of their sig models don't have a truss rod cover.)
Burst Me, Bro!
Here's a Shutt signature Rev that backs up the Venetian gold model—finished with a metallic alpine burst.
Longtime Laney Love
Shutt states that he fired up this Laney AOR Series Pro-Tube Lead head for 2006's Age of Winters, 2008's Gods of the Earth, 2010's Warp Riders, and 2012's Apocryphon, but admits it's not his amp. It belongs to Sword bassist Bryan Richie.
Hey Cabby!
Shutt runs Richie's AOR Series Pro-Tube Lead head into a (beautifully) stripped Marshall 1960B straight 4x12 loaded with a quad of Celestion G12H Creamback 75W 12" speakers.
Shutt up and Stomp!
Kyle's pedal playland keeps it classic with just a Dunlop Cry Baby 95Q Wah, a signature Idiotbox Effects Wild Kyle distortion, an Electro-Harmonix Micro POG, and an EarthQuaker Devices Levitation reverb. A Boss TU-3 Chromatic Tuner keeps his Reverends in check.
JD-V
Cofounding frontman and the Sword's main lyric scribe J.D. Cronise has always been attracted to outliers. This mid-2000s Gibson 1967 Flying V reissue caught his eye while on tour in support of Apocryphon. (He believes the V was built in either 2005 or 2007.)
He's upgraded the hardware, pickguard, and adopted a set of DiMarzios (originally a Super Distortion and a Super 2, and now a pair of PAF 36th Anniversary humbuckers). Like Kyle, he rides in C standard all night and laces on Ernie Ball Mondo Slinkys (.0105–.052).Billy-Bo for Texas
When the once-all-Texas band boogie on ZZ Top's "Cheap Sunglasses" each night (a cover included on 2012's Apocryphon), Cronise struts with this Gretsch G6199TW Limited Edition Round Up Billy-Bo Jupiter Thunderbird that was an exclusive run for Fuller's Guitars in Houston. (Very fitting, since the original tres hombres started rocking H-town in the late '60s.) It still has stock TV Jones Power'Tron pickups and carries enough swag to be a museum piece or swing all Saturday night at Billy Bob's Texas. He tunes it to Eb standard, but uses a DigiTech Drop pedal to morph it to C. For the tighter tuning, he wraps on Ernie Ball Primo Slinkys (.0095 –.044).
Decked Out
Check out some of the intricate, cowboy-and-Western-themed inlays.
And Ready to Dance
The Billy-Bo's classy golden knobs radiate in the orange finish and you can see a few of its bronze, circular rivets on its side.
Orange You Glad to See Me?
If you watched the band's first Rundown from 2014, you'll recognize JD's Orange OR100, as it's the same head featured in that episode.
It's a British Thing
Last time he was hauling a pair of Orange cabs (4x12 and 2x12), but this time Cronise opted to bring his 1990s Marshall JCM 900 Lead Series 1960A slant 4x12 that has a quartet of Celestion G12H Creamback 75W 12" speakers.
Packed Pedal Playground
JD maximizes his flight-friendly board by filling nearly every square inch with an effect. His guitar hits the TC Electronic PolyTune 3 before reaching a pair of necessary oddballs—the aforementioned DigiTech Drop and an Electro-Harmonix Freeze. The bottom row contains the basic food groups for most rockers: Way Huge Conspiracy Theory (drive), EarthQuaker Devices Tone Job (EQ), MXR Phase 90 (modulation), MXR Carbon Copy (delay), and EHX Holy Grail (reverb). The Rocktron HUSH pedal helps control any unwanted noises and buzzing.
Friends at First Sight
When bassist Bryan Richie joined the Sword in 2004, he brought this 1994 Fender MIM Jazz bass. (He was 14 at the time.) Richie's made just two improvements to his first ride: He dropped in some Seymour Duncan Quarter Pound Jazz Bass pickups and screwed in a Leo Quan Badass II Bass bridge. The thin neck and lightweight body are a pair of reasons he continues to grab it, despite a bounty of options. And he plays with Ernie Ball Power Slinky Bass strings (.055–.110).
Ample Amp
Reducing from a SVT stack and 300W Verellen Meat Smoke, Richie now travels with this Ampeg V-4B. For years Richie, would hit the road with a fridge-sized 8x10, but now he matches his V-4B with an Ampeg 4x10 cabinet.
Warp Riders on the Taurus
"Producer Matt Bayles put a bunch of keyboard shit on the record [Warp Riders], and afterwards we wondered 'who was gonna play that?'" Bryan Richie raised his hand and put his feet to work on this Moog Taurus III.
More Moog
Bryan really only has one pedal—a Moog MF Drive. The other stomps are a Peterson StroboStomp and a Radial J48 1-channel Active 48V Direct Box.