Along with contemporaries like MGMT and Passion Pit, Greenwich, New York, duo Phantogram’s experiments crosspollinating hip-hop, indie, and punk rock helped cement and elevate a new era of electronic-influenced alt-rock and indie music. At the start of the 2010s, you’d be hard-pressed to find a college radio station or dorm-room playlist that didn’t include a Phantogram hit.
Sixteen years after the release of their debut record, band leaders Josh Carter and Sarah Barthel, who started Phantogram in a town of just a few thousand people, are touring behind their latest full-length, 2024’s Memory of a Day. The tour included a sold-out stop at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium—a different sort of barn than the kind they used to perform in back in Greenwich—where PG’s John Bohlinger caught up with Carter and Barthel. Courtesy of some help from their tech, the duo showed us how they’re pulling off their theatrical live experience.
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Music Mantogram
Carter is endorsed by Ernie Ball Music Man guitars, so all three of his road axes are variations on his current favorite Cutlass model. This one, first among the trio, is finished in black with a gold pickguard, and like its stablemates, it bears the Phantogram logo inlaid on the first fret. Carter removes the vibrato bar and uses his hand to pull the bridge up to nail the warbles. Aside from that, this one is all stock, and strung with Ernie Ball Paradigm .010s. While he sometimes grabs a pick, Carter plays most of the set with an acrylic nail on his index finger.
Brown Sound
This first backup Cutlass is finished in brown with the woodgrain peeking through and a burgundy tortoiseshell pickguard. It has a Seymour Duncan single-coil-sized humbucker in the bridge position for a hotter output than its black counterpart.
Step It Up
This natural finish Cutlass has had the same pickup mod as the brown one, but this one stays tuned a half-step up for special deployment.
Clean Business
Carter uses a wireless system to run to this Neural DSP Quad Cortex at his feet. His tech has set it up to emulate many of the pedals Carter uses in the studio. Carter appreciates the tactile and flexible nature of the system; it can take MIDI programming so Carter can focus on performing, or it can be rigged up to function like a traditional pedalboard. He uses a mix of amp emulations, including AC30-, 5150-, Fender tweed-, and Jazz Chorus-style patches.
A Boss volume and expression pedal alongside the Quad Cortex give Carter some extra control over the setup.
Josh Carter's Pedalboard Playground
While Carter carried a compact stomp station for tour, he’s addicted to stompboxes and uses them for inspiration when writing and sound building during studio sessions. Here’s what a small selection shared from his collection:
“The most prominent pedals I used for years onstage before switching to the Quad Cortex were the Line 6 DL4, Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail, Boss
DD-6 Digital Delay, Boss OC-3 Super Octave OC-3, Fulltone OCD, Wampler Ego Compressor, and Route 66 American Overdrive.
My go-to studio pedals are the MXR Joshua Ambient Echo, Line 6 DL4, Death By Audio Reverberation Machine, Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail, Chase Bliss Generation Loss MkII, Chase Bliss Mood MkII, Boss DD-500 Digital Delay, Chase Bliss Audio Automatone CXM 1978, Old Blood Noise Mondegreen Delay and Reflector Chorus.
And some honorable mentions for pedals I’ve been really digging as of late would be the Neon Egg Planetarium, Roland Space Echo, and various vintage & new spring reverbs.
Silver Stunner
Sarah Barthel initially played keys in Phantogram, but she learned bass and mimicked her synth parts on the instrument so she could move about freely and interact more with Carter. This custom-made sparkle-finish Fender Mustang is the perfect size for her, and she just recently started playing it with a pick. She runs into a Quad Cortex, too, but the Fender Bassman stack lurking behind the bass serves as an onstage monitor.
Jazzmaster
Barthel isn’t confined to the bass, either. At some points in the set she jumps onto this prized Jazzmaster, which she’s had for 15 years.
Reader: Cary Cummings
Hometown: Seattle, WA
Guitar: Labrocaster
Cary Cummings’ dog-obsessed axes have appeared in this column in the past? Do any of our readers have a cat-o-caster? If so, please share.
I started with an older Warmoth Strat-style alder body from an old project and added a Warmoth vintage-style, 1-piece maple neck with 6100 frets, a 43 mm nut slot, and a Fatback profile. It wasn’t quite right. I sanded the profile down to a comfortable 0.96" at the first fret and finished it off with a wipe-on polyurethane finish and affixed my signature Labrador graphic to the headstock. The Labrador on the headstock is an homage to my three Labrador retrievers and to my previous three who have crossed the Rainbow Bridge. And if ever there was a breed of dog that is a happy clown, it is a Labrador retriever. Just looking at them makes me smile.
A set of Guyker Dopamine vintage locking tuners in blue and rose started me down the yellow-brick road. My entourage included a blue anodized aluminum pickguard and backplate, a red metal switch tip, and purple stainless steel saddles for the Fender American Special bridge and jack plate. Pretty.
Cary’s love for his herd of Labs inspired him to create a signature logo for the headstock.
Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty. It’s wired up with 22 AWG pushback cloth wire, 3XCTS 250K pots, an Oak Grigsby switch, a Switchcraft jack, and a 0.015 ceramic disk capacitor. The capacitor takes the treble off but not so much midrange that comes standard in so many guitars. The bridge pickup is a Seymour Duncan Red Devil, the middle is a Duncan Hot Stack, and the neck is a Duncan Parallel Axis Stack—all noiseless.
The final touch is the D’Addario elliptical-shaped strap buttons. Now, when I rock out in my living room, sending the guitar flying over my shoulder and around my back, nothing gets damaged!
Cary Cummings and one of his Labrador retrievers.
