Come with us, time travelers, as we revisit a year’s worth of axes, amps, stomps, basses, baritones, and other tools of our music-making trade—all deemed worthy of the Premier Gear Award.
Fulltone 2B JFET Booster
Much of what makes Fulltone’s Full Drive 2 and 3 such hits is their forgiving simplicity: They make dialing up great overdrive and boost tones a breeze. The 2B takes that simplicity a step further, extracting the boost section from the Full Drive 3 and stuffing it into a sturdy, ultra-compact pedal that packs a wallop and serves as a tone masseuse extraordinaire.
$103 street, fulltone.com
Click here to read the full review
Red Witch Zeus
The chrome-clad Red Witch Zeus took a Premier Gear Award this year thanks to its split personality—part analog sub-octave, part silicone fuzz. The two completely stand-alone effects are impressive as solo beings, but run both simultaneously and you’ll summon thunderous sonic mayhem.
$299 street, redwitchpedals.com
Click here to read the full review
Jackson SLATXMGQ 3-6 Soloist
Stable, sonically potent, and ready to slay, this imported X-series Soloist impressed reviewer Joe Charupakorn with it’s buttery action, tuning-stable vibrato, and surprising versatility. These qualities make this metal-on-the-surface axe equally suited for blues, rock, and pop applications.
$699 street, jacksonguitars.com
Click here to read the full review
Faith FNCETB Neptune
The Neptune managed the ever-so-satisfying trick of sounding and feeling very expensive at a three-figure price. Using Indonesian trembesi wood for the back and sides, along with an Engelmann spruce top adds up to a simultaneously bright and bass-rich voice. And with versatile Shadow electronics, it’s a great stage-ready performer too.
$999 street, faithguitars.com
Click here to read the full review
Demeter Bass 400
Designer James Demeter has been handcrafting high-end pedals and amps to the delight of players for 30-plus years. With the Premier Gear Award-winning Bass 400, he paired his revered VTBP-201 tube preamp with a class-D power amp to deliver a rig that’s lighter on the back and pocketbook, yet remains plenty heavy in tone.
$999 street, demeteramps.com
Click here to read the full review
Reverend Descent H90 Baritone
Shawn Hammond ventured that the H90 might be the most versatile baritone electric on the market. With potent Railhammer pickups and sound-shaping features, including powerful tone and bass contour controls, it’s hard to argue against that assertion. The H90 is stout, affordable, and capable of sounds from fabulously fat to searing.
$999 street, reverendguitars.com
Click here to read the full review
Nace PRO-18 Tolex Combo
Our esteemed colleague Ted Drozdowski has done a gig or two in his time, so when he called the PRO-18 “a damn-near perfect gigging machine,” we figured this classy little EL84 tweedster had a thing or two going for it. And while Ted found the Nace capable of the rowdy brashness you’d expect from a Marshall-inspired circuit like this, he also found it capable of great nuance, and agreeable to guitars and pickups of every kind.
$1,799, naceamps.com
Click here to read the full review
DryBell Vibe Machine
Croatia’s DryBell did not dabble in half measures when they built this Shin Ei Uni-Vibe clone. The photocells at the heart of the pedal (a must for any real Uni-Vibe clone) are all carefully matched and tested. The extra work yields a fantastically rich and authentic Uni-Vibe-style stomp, complete with expression-pedal functionality.
$295 street, drybell.com
Click here to read the full review
Xotic RC-Booster SH
This groovin’ collaboration between fusion guru Scott Henderson and Xotic is a dual-channel version of the company’s flagship pedal, the RC Booster. Its two voices—a clear, warm transparent boost and a singing, saturated lead mode—both respond well to picking dynamics. The RCB-SH is ideal for players who are happy with their core tone, but seek a little extra kick to make their guitar stand out onstage.
$168 direct, xotic.us
Click here to read the full review
PRS SE 227 Baritone
We were not at all surprised when the PRS SE 227 turned out to be an exquisitely built and playable baritone electric—we’re used to that sort of thing from Paul Reed Smith. What really knocked us out was how sonically adaptable and varied the 227 turned out to be. With nuanced, low-output pickups that proved equally capable of delivering raging rock and softer, snappier fare, it’s one of the more multifaceted and value-packed baris we’ve run into in years.
$749 street, prsguitars.com
Click here to read the full review
MXR 5150 Overdrive
Promising any aspect of Eddie Van Halen’s tone in a box is tricky business. The dude is a magician and you don’t cop that kind of wizardry through circuits. But in terms of enabling the quest for Eddie-dom, it would be hard to find a more capable tool than the 5150 Overdrive. Sensitive, aggressive, and surprisingly tweakable, the feature-packed stomp offers a killer path to the brown sound and beyond.
$199 street, jimdunlop.com
Click here to read the full review
Ampeg PF-50T
The all-tube PF-50T might not be laden with bells and whistles, but this classic-looking head thoroughly impressed reviewer Steve Cook with its rich vintage warmth, handy dual DIs, and very attractive price for an amp of this caliber.
$899 street, ampeg.com
Click here to read the full review
Carr Lincoln
Joe Gore called Carr’s Lincoln a “freewheeling fantasia on Voxiness,” a description that’s not just reflective of the Carr’s design inspirations but also of its abundant color and personality. Like just about every Carr that’s crossed our transom, it’s beautifully built. But it’s the bounty of complex, rich, and rainbow-spectrum Brit-tones on tap that put us over the moon for the Lincoln.
$2,980 street, carramps.com
Click here to read the full review
Sire Marcus Miller V7
Sire stirred up more than a splash in the bass community with their sub-$500 Marcus Miller V7 this year. The tones, construction, and aesthetics impressed reviewer David Abdo so much that he bestowed very heavy praise: “In fact, it might be one of the best production J-style basses out there regardless of price.”
$499 street, sire-usa.com
Click here to read the full review
Catalinbread Katzenkönig
As Joe Gore pointed out in his review of the Katzenkönig, working with old circuits need not rule out creativity. The Katzenkönig proves the power of imaginative circuit DNA scrambling—mating the raw potency of Tone Bender MKII on the front end with the tone shaping power and thrust of a RAT on the output end. The result is tight, tough, explosive, surprisingly easy to wrangle, and above all refreshingly original.
$169 street, catalinbread.com
Click here to read the full review
RJM Mastermind PBC
On the surface, pedal switching seems like a very mechanical task, but RJM’s Mastermind PBC reveals how judiciously applied doses of digital functionality can expand the potential of an affordable switcher in really practical ways. With 768 possible presets, you’ll almost certainly run out of licks before you exhaust the compact RJM’s possibilities.
$999 street, rjmmusic.com
Click here to read the full review
Boss ES-8
Power, ease of use, and an accessible price. This wouldn’t be the first time we’d used this loose group of descriptors for a Boss product. But given all the ES-8 pedal switcher does (800 presets and deep programmability) and it’s affordability relative to the competition, the ES-8 is a great value and a killer foundation for any busy pedalboard.
$699 street, bossus.com
Click here to read the full review
Carl Martin Octa-Switch MK3
The Octa-Switch MK3 proved there’s still room for straightforward mechanical simplicity in the fast-evolving realm of pedal switching. With its intuitive operation, it’s especially suited to neophyte switcher users. And with a $427 price, it represents one of the best bang-for-the-buck propositions in the pedal switcher game.
$427 street, carlmartin.com
Click here to read the full review
Ernie Ball/Music Man St. Vincent
It’s no surprise that a guitarist as potent and delightfully irreverent as Annie Clark would help conceive an axe as potent and irreverent as her signature Ernie Ball/Music Man, the St. Vincent. The three mini-humbuckers add up to a multitude of possible voices, while the superb playability translates not just to comfort, but huge expressive possibilities.
$1,899 street, music-man.com
Click here to read the full review
Mesa/Boogie Subway D-800
Mesa’s highly anticipated entry into the lightweight class-D game did not disappoint reviewer Jordan Wagner, who was especially taken with the amp’s EQ. The smart-looking 800-watt powerhouse might weigh in at a slim 5 1/2 pounds, but as Wagner remarked, “Even with the input and master knobs conservatively set to 10 o’clock, the rig packed quite a wallop.”
$699 street, mesaboogie.com
Click here to read the full review
Dr. Z Z-Lux
In its all-gray-and-black guise, Dr. Z’s Z-Lux is an unassuming creature. But with 40 watts of quad-6V6 power, high headroom, versatile EQ, and onboard spring reverb and tube tremolo, it’s an ideal partner for modern players who love mid-’60s American amp vibe and lots of wiggle room for their effects.
$2,399 street, drzamps.com
Click here to read the full review
Dusky D₂O
The D₂O would probably walk away with the prize for “coolest-looking amp we tested all year.” But we discovered it also sounds every bit as killer as its pop-art look suggests. While the dual 6L6 power section suggests a blackface Fender clone, the D₂O delivered a Vox-like crunch that was fat with sustain, multifaceted, and delightfully full of surprises.
$1,500 street ($575 cabinet sold separately), duskyamp.com
Click here to read the full review
Thorpy FX Fallout Cloud
It’s a cliché to draw parallels between any English product and Her Majesty’s fave superspy, but in the case of the Thorpy Fallout Cloud (formerly known as the Muffroom Cloud), the mix of stylish tailoring, tough-as-nails build, and killer performance truly make it the 007 of Muff-inspired fuzzes. Indeed, Fallout Cloud sounds huge while maintaining a harmonic complexity and sophistication that’s worthy of Commander Bond himself.
$290 street, thorpyfx.com
Click here to read the full review
Chellee Odie Classic
The Odie Classic might be the Screamer-inspired overdrive for players who don’t like TS pedals. Reviewer Charles Saufley found it more open, oxygenated, and complex than his own vintage Tube Screamer (which he likes quite a bit). And at less than $150, it’s priced competitively with a lot of TS clones that can’t approach its wide-spectrum sonic profile.
$149 street, chellee.com
Click here to read the full review
Echopark F-1
David Von Bader called the F-1 “foolproof, musical, and explosive.” That’s good, given that there are only two knobs to control this primitive, but sonically cultivated little beast. But while the minimalistic F-1 may appear limited, it’s wildly adaptable. Gray it may be, but this Echopark is a fuzz for all seasons.
$230 street, echoparkguitars.com
Click here to read the full review
Korg Pitchblack Custom
Following in the footsteps of Korg’s successful Pitchblack tuner, the true-bypass Pitchblack Custom offers an improved detection range of +/- 0.1 cents, triple the battery life, a smaller enclosure, and a bigger display with four user-selectable meter modes. The Pitchblack Custom’s bright 3-D vertical strobe-like display instills confidence that this black box can handle its duties on the darkest stages.
$99 street, korg.com
Click here to read the full review
Tyyster Pelti 12-String
“Pelti” means sheet metal in Finnish, and that’s what luthier Ville Tyyster uses for the body of this immaculately built electric 12. If you love the crisp, jangly tones of classic 12-string electrics from Rickenbacker and Fender, the humbucker-equipped Pelti delivers in spades. But thanks to an internal contact mic, dual volume controls, and a stereo output, the Pelti offers exciting new sonic turf for hardcore jangle-holics to explore.
$4,570 street, sites.google.com/site/tyysterinkitarat/
Click here to read the full review
Bergantino Audio Systems B|Amp and HD112 & HD210 Cabinets
Already known for his standout bass cabinets, Jim Bergantino decided that the time was right to design his own amplifier. The resulting 700-watt B|Amp packs tons of tonal and operational features—most of which are governed by a quartet of knobs below the LCD display—into its 6 1/2 pound frame, and it received accolades aplenty from reviewer David Abdo for its loud, clean tone and sound-shaping ease. Paired with Bergantino HD112 and HD210 cabinets (also Premier Gear Award winners) that were praised for their “crushingly clean tone,” this rig proved to be the whole enchilada.
$1,399 street (B|AMP)
$729 street (HD112)
$829 street (HD210), bergantino.com
Click here to read the full review
Malekko Charlie Foxtrot
Borrowing elements of a sampler/looper, a delay, and a pitch shifter, Charlie Foxtrot almost defies categorization. Once you grasp how the controls interact, Charlie avails textures ranging from subtly warped pitch hiccups to beautifully bizarre 10-second loops. The pedal delivers the sort of delicious dementedness you can typically attain only through complicated digital gear, but in a functional format even numbskulls can grok.
$189 street, malekkoheavyindustry.com
Click here to read the full review
Line 6 Helix
An ambitious multi-effector with nearly 200 amp and pedal models, a built-in expression pedal, exceptional rear-panel connectivity, and large, bright, color-coded editing surfaces, Helix is an extraordinarily powerful recording and performing tool. Crafty guitarists might use it for composing and sound design, tracking to DAW via Helix’s quality convertors, gigging through a P.A., or bypassing Helix’s amp/cab simulations and playing through a conventional amp. Guitarists who like hanging out in the digital realm will be hard pressed to find a superior traveling companion.
$1,499 street, line6.com
Click here to read the full review
Boss VB-2W Waza Craft Vibrato
An enhanced version of the VB-2 Vibrato—a Boss pedal coveted for its relative rarity—the new VB-2W Waza Craft is a wonderfully quirky modulation device. Like the original, the VB-2W is an analog pitch wobbler, but it has a quieter circuit, a jack to control depth with an expression pedal, and two switchable voices. Those looking for unconventional sci-fi sonics will find them in the VB-2W.
$199 street, bossus.com
Click here to read the full review
BluGuitar Amp 1
A 100-watt, 4-channel amplifier that can be mounted on a pedalboard? Meet the Amp 1, an ingenious device that combines a tube-powered preamp with a solid-state class-D power amp. Amp 1’s tones range from darn good to ridiculously good, and the 3-band EQ section works beautifully in all modes. Though not dramatic, the digital reverb is rich, musical, and convincingly spring-like. Amp 1 is a triumph of both engineering and sound design.
$799 street, bluguitar.com
Click here to read the full review
Henriksen Bud
Jazz and fingerstyle players are likely to love this tiny (9" x 9" x 9") 135-watt, solid-state combo, but the dual-channel Bud has a lot to offer guitarists of almost any musical persuasion. The Bud’s flexible inputs and outputs, excellent reverb, potent 5-band EQ, and burly low end make it ideal for small gigs. Need a personal monitor, teaching-room tool, or micro-PA for a laptop or tablet? This Bud’s for you.
$1,099 street, henriksenamplifiers.com
Click here to read the full review
Strymon Dig Dual Digital Delay
With its two delays and flexible, interactive controls, Dig is a powerful echo-generating machine. It delivers the best of ’80s rack-device sounds, yet it feels as timeless as any echo unit out there. Triplet, eighth, dotted-eighth, and dotted-quarter settings let you dial in intriguing rhythmic repeats, and its three resolution settings and many “hidden” secondary functions means Dig adds up to more than meets the eye.
$299 street, strymon.net
Click here to read the full review
Fender American Elite Precision Bass
Reviewer Steve Cook discovered P-bass glory with the Fender American Elite model that’s outfitted with a noiseless P/J configuration and active electronics capable of covering a vast tonal landscape. Cook says, “Yes, plenty of basses are marketed as built for all styles of music, but the American Elite Precision can truly back this claim.” Superior tone, killer components, and an impressive build? That’ll seal the deal for a Premier Gear Award.
$1,799 street, fender.com
Click here to read the full review
3Leaf Audio Wonderlove
Players who dig the Mu-Tron III will adore Wonderlove, a potent envelope filter from Seattle’s 3Leaf Audio. It covers all the Mu-Tron III bases while adding controls to unlock sounds you can’t coax from a vintage unit. Well made and reasonably priced considering its quality hardware and design innovations—which include a built-in effects loop—Wonderlove nails expected envelope filter tones, plus many others.
$299 street, 3leafaudio.com
Click here to read the full review
Fender Bassbreaker 45
Early Marshall amps “borrowed” heavily from the Fender Bassman circuit, a point Fender underscores with their 2-channel Bassbreaker 45. The 45-watt 2x12 combo mates a vintage Fender-style circuit with a pair of EL34s to create a distinctly British flavor with lots of headroom. Equipped with powerful 70-watt Celestion G12s, a hefty transformer, an attenuator, and a clever scheme for connecting the dual channels in series, this amp delivers classic tones at a cost-conscious price.
$999 street, fender.com
Click here to read the full review
JColoccia ID
When you set the controls on the JColoccia ID overdrive at neutral positions, it’s a sonic dead ringer for a vintage Tube Screamer. But unlike most 808 clones, the ID delivers a genuinely useful, expanded EQ section that lets you dial in more air, more punch, and more radical tones than you’ll get out of any 3-knob Tube Screamer. This sonically flexible pedal offers a satisfying way to dirty up your world.
$169 street, jcolocciaguitars.com
Click here to read the full review
Mojo Hand FX Sacred Cow
Mojo Hand Sacred Cow is one of the best Klon-inspired pedals we’ve seen in recent years, and it’s more than a slavish copy of this well-codified sonic template. The Sacred Cow’s most obvious enhancement is its lean/fatty switch. Lean settings are “normal,” while fatty settings lend low-end heft that gives flexibility to players who switch between single-coils and humbuckers. For Klon tones at an accessible price, the Sacred Cow is tough to top.
$179 street, mojohandfx.com
Click here to read the full review
Taylor 562ce 12-Fret 12-String
The 562ce gushes gloriously rich tones and plays like a dream. Its mahogany Grand Concert body has an elegant Venetian cutaway that affords easy access to all 18 frets, despite the 12th-fret body joint. With its flawless workmanship and factory setup, low and fast action, hyper-accurate intonation, unreal sustain, and Expression System 2 electronics, the 562ce is an instrument of refined delicacy that makes fingerstyle playing an utter delight.
$2,699 street, taylorguitars.com
Click here to read the full review
Marshall JCM 25/50 2555X Silver Jubilee
Produced only in 1987, original Marshall Silver Jubilee amps now fetch ridiculous sums. Marshall has heeded the clamor with the new JCM 25/50 2555X Silver Jubilee. While the 2555X boasts several design changes, in most critical ways it’s a faithful recreation of the original. Powered by four EL34s, the amp delivers 100 watts in triode mode and 50 watts in pentode. It boasts responsive EQ controls, heavenly clean tones, and a hot-rodded JCM800 vibe.
$1,899 street (head); $1,299 street (cabinet), marshallamps.com
Click here to read the full review
Schroeder SA9+
While some may argue the potential effect of say, a single capacitor in an amp or pedal, the SA9+ reveals how good the sum of many great components and an inspired, well-executed build can sound. Powered by twin KT66s, the amp’s superior headroom means very sweet clean tones, but the 40-watt head also makes a very responsive blank slate for pedals ranging from modulation to the most aggressive fuzz.
$3,950, schroederamplification.com
Click here to read the full review
SolidGold FX Horizon
The beauty of the Horizon optical compressor? How it goes beyond basic compression. Yes, it can handle the most pedestrian compression tasks if you keep those attack and comp settings at the lowest levels. But the real treat is the swelling, super-squished, and downright psychedelic approximations of tape manipulation and studio-chain compression you can get via three knobs.
$175, solidgoldfx.com
Click here to read the full review
Ibanez Analog Chorus Mini
Ibanez’s Mini series has produced hit after hit so far, and with its warm, liquid modulations, the Analog Chorus Mini reveals how adept Ibanez designers have become at stuffing their best analog effects into petite packages. At 99 bucks, and with a footprint not much bigger than a Matchbox car, it’s one of this year’s price-to-performance ratio champions!
$99, ibanez.com
Click here to read the full review
Fender American Elite Telecaster
The Telecaster is nearing 70 years old. But it’s a long, long way from retirement. In fact, the American Elite Telecaster reveals not just how freaking perfect the Telecaster is as a guitar design, but how much wiggle room there still is for tweaking. Fast, comfortable, and overflowing with sustain, the American Elite is a bold proclamation of how the granddaddy of solidbody electrics remains alive and vital.
$1,799 street, fender.com
Click here to read the full review
Peavey Classic 30
The latest addition to Peavey’s Classic series, this all-tube 30-watt 1x12 combo has enough versatility to handle virtually any playing situation. With two foot-switchable channels and four EL84s, the Classic 30 covers a wide sonic territory, and its shared 3-knob EQ and spring reverb make it easy to dial in everything from sparkling surf to roadhouse rock. An effects loop and switchable boost are welcome additions to this affordable, rugged stage amp.
$699 street, peavey.com
Click here to read the full review
Alexander La Calavera Phaser
Though it’s digital, La Calavera sounds and operates like a great analog phaser. It’s no more difficult to use than a vintage Boss phaser, but its tonal range is far greater. La Calavera strikes a savvy compromise between power and simplicity, and all the controls offer deliciously musical ranges and tapers, which makes it incredibly easy to create compelling sounds in the pedal’s three operating modes. And hey, it looks rad too.
$189 street, alexanderpedals.com
Click here to read the full review
Source Audio Nemesis Delay
With seven knobs, two switches, two push buttons, two footswitches, and a raft of I/Os, the Nemesis digital delay may look imposing, but dialing in personal variations on classic and newfangled echo sounds is actually intuitive and fun. Nemesis can dish authentic slapback or perform precise sound-sculpting functions, and it’s a joy to explore the musical possibilities between those extremes. An easy-to-use editor app makes this powerful standalone delay even more versatile.
$299 street, sourceaudio.net
Click here to read the full review
EarthQuaker Devices Spatial Delivery
Don’t let Spatial Delivery’s simple layout fool you—this envelope filter is capable of countless cool tones. Thanks to a clever multi-mode filter, you can create new sounds in a fraction of the time required by more complex filter effects, and it’s easy to dial in just the right response to suit your touch. The versatile controls are beautifully calibrated, the sound quality is superb, and the price is right for a handmade pedal.
$195 street, earthquakerdevices.com
Click here to read the full review
Ibanez TSA5TVR Tube Screamer Amp
The 6V6-driven Ibanez TSA5TVR Tube Screamer amp—which, as you might have guessed, has an onboard Tube Screamer circuit—is a 5-watt, 1x8 combo that excels at blues-rock leads, grinding power chords, ’60s garage fuzz, and Led Zeppelin-style leads. And how about that two-tone vinyl that looks lifted from a ’57 DeSoto Fireflite? Throw in a subtle but lush Accutronics spring reverb and you have the perfect amp for recording or playing intimate club gigs.
$399 street, ibanez.com
Click here to read the full review
Come with us time travelers, as we revisit a year’s worth of axes, amps, stomps, basses, baritones, and other tools of our music-making trade—all deemed worthy of the Premier Gear Award. This year’s list is as diverse as ever: Classics revisited, shred machines made affordable, fuzzes refined and made more fiendish, amps that blast and purr, basses that boom, and time-warping delays and reverbs that mock astronomers’ notions about the cosmos. From manufacturers big and small, these delights await you in the pages ahead. Enjoy the voyage.
The final day is here! Enter Stompboxtober Day 31 for your last chance to win today’s pedal from Keeley and finish the month strong!
Keeley Octa Psi Transfigurating Fuzz Pedal with Polyphonic Pitch Shifting
Meet the OCTA PSI Transfigurating Fuzz – The Ultimate Combination of Pitch-Shifter, Octave Generator, and Tri-Voiced Analog Fuzz! Key features include: Instant Effect Order Switching, Flexible Output Configuration, Momentary or Latching Octave/Pitch, and more! Each pitch shift mode includes an up, down, and dual setting, resulting in 24 different modes.
Developed specifically for Tyler Bryant, the Black Magick Reverb TB is the high-power version of Supro's flagship 1x12 combo amplifier.
At the heart of this all-tube amp is a matched pair of military-grade Sovtek 5881 power tubes configured to deliver 35-Watts of pure Class A power. In addition to the upgraded power section, the Black Magick Reverb TB also features a “bright cap” modification on Channel 1, providing extra sparkle and added versatility when blended with the original Black Magick preamp on Channel 2.
The two complementary channels are summed in parallel and fed into a 2-band EQ followed by tube-driven spring reverb and tremolo effects plus a master volume to tame the output as needed. This unique, signature variant of the Black Magick Reverb is dressed in elegant Black Scandia tolex and comes loaded with a custom-built Supro BD12 speaker made by Celestion.
Price: $1,699.
The 6-string wielding songwriter has often gotten flack for reverberating his classic band’s sound in his solo work. But as time, and his latest, tells, that’s not only a strength, but what both he and loyal listeners want.
The guitarist, singer, and songwriter Jerry Cantrell, who is best known for helming Alice in Chains, one of the most influential bands in hard-rock history, is an affable, courteous conversationalist. He’ll apologize, for instance, when he’s been on a PR mission all afternoon and needs to eat something. “I’m sorry. I’m starving. I’m going to make a BLT while we finish this interview,” he says on a recent Zoom call.
“That’s bacon frying, by the way,” he adds, in case his interviewer was wondering about the sizzling sound in the background.
Over the better part of an hour, only a couple of points of discussion seem to stoke his ire. One would be ’90s-era culture writers who felt compelled to brand a wide range of interesting bands from the same city (Seattle) with the same hollow tag (grunge). “It’s just a fucking label,” he says. “But I get it. You gotta have a fucking descriptor.” (When he gets miffed, or especially enthusiastic, Cantrell’s F-bombs can progress from steady punctuation to military fusillade.)
Another pet peeve: Those who seem bewildered by the fact that his solo work often evokes Alice in Chains. “It always trips me out,” he says, “when I hear comments or get questions all the time, like, ‘Well, this sounds like Alice.’ Well, what do you think it was going to sound like? I’m the guitar player and the songwriter of Alice. That’s what I do. Do you want me to not be myself? It’s just a bizarre, bizarre thing.” A big laugh follows.
“I’m always collecting ideas, and you never know when they’re going to come, or what they’re going to turn into. I look at it like depositing money in a bank.”
Cantrell, 58, has a right to feel irked by such exchanges. After all, he and the classic Alice lineup of vocalist Layne Staley, bassist Mike Starr, and drummer Sean Kinney invented a mesmeric, instantly identifiable sound that continues to stand alone in heavy music. On paper, the Alice formula doesn’t indicate multi-platinum success outright: off-kilter vocal harmonies shared between Staley and Cantrell, which can call to mind arcane American folk music or the classical avant-garde; parts written in odd time; lyrics about the most wrenching depths of drug addiction, a black cloud that followed the band throughout its ascent and tragically claimed Staley’s life in 2002 and Starr’s in 2011.
But Cantrell and Alice were also dedicated students of hard-rock history, who, along with their Seattle peers Soundgarden, helped to reinvent chart-topping metal for the alternative-rock era. To be sure, the guitarist ranks among the great riff maestros, and his solos, whether all-out wailing or comprised of a few bluesy bends, always had weight and meaning within the context of the song. And with all due respect to Extreme, no other hard-rock act explored acoustic music with more brilliant results.
Boasting nine tracks and coproduced by Cantrell and Joe Barresi, I Want Blood keeps the guitarist’s expert riffs and lyrical solos front and center.
On their masterpiece, the 1992 album Dirt, Alice in Chains managed to take Black Sabbath’s template for molten riffs into stranger, more artful, and more desperate territory, yet they also crafted tracks chock-full of hooks. A seamless meld of pop moves and bone-crushing heaviness is something of a holy grail for hard-rock songwriters and producers, and Dirt nabs it. Think of tracks like “Them Bones,” with its 7/8 intro riff and aslant vocal-harmony verses that resolve into a punchy, satisfying chorus—among the pithiest assessments of mortality in rock ’n’ roll. Or “Rooster,” an homage to Cantrell’s Vietnam-veteran father, with its left-field R&B harmonies and molasses-drip tempo. Somehow, these are songs that can rattle around in your brain throughout entire road trips or workdays; as of this writing, Dirt has sold five-million copies in the U.S.
“Let the players find their songs, and the songs find their players.”
Cantrell’s new album, I Want Blood, is his fourth solo release, and it’s a strong argument that he should continue to sound like himself and his legacy. Coproduced by Cantrell and hard-rock studio wizard Joe Barresi, its nine tracks tap into the Alice in Chains aesthetic in a way that will hit a sweet spot for longtime fans. As on the albums that Alice has released since Staley’s passing, with vocalist William DuVall, that indefinable sense of unease, that smoky ambiance of dread, isn’t so enveloping. But Cantrell’s most crucial gifts—the riff science, the knack for hooks, the belief that solos should be lyrical, musical, singable—are front and center, and razor-sharp.
What’s more, he’s recruited fellow hard-rock royalty to fulfill this vision. In addition to Barresi, whose credits comprise Kyuss, Melvins, Tool, QotSA and many, many others, the album’s personnel includes bassists Robert Trujillo and Duff McKagan, and drummers Mike Bordin (Faith No More) and Gil Sharone (Marilyn Manson, the Dillinger Escape Plan).
Through Alice in Chains’ rise in the early ’90s to recent years, Cantrell’s hard-rock presence has remained unshakeable. Here, he strikes a timeless rock 'n' roll pose.
Photo by Jordi Vidal/PhotoFuss
I Want Blood is a ripper. “Vilified” couples a chunky metal riff with wah and talk-box accents and a wandering, Eastern-tinged melody; “Off the Rails” matches a line à la John Carpenter’s Halloween score with a groove-metal thrust, before a radio-ready chorus kicks in. Ditto the chorus of “Let It Lie,” whose verse riff is pure Sabbath bliss. The earworm title track is the stuff music-sync-licensing dreams are made of. When he dials the tempo back toward ballad territory, as on “Echoes of Laughter,” “Afterglow,” or “It Comes,” Cantrell’s instinct for songcraft seems to get even stronger. As with Alice’s best LPs, I Want Blood stays with you and grows on you until it’s in steady rotation.
So what of that songcraft? It’s been over three decades since Cantrell debuted on record, and he’s still mining heavy gold. What’s the strategy, and what’s the secret? Does Cantrell’s work get harder or easier as he edges toward 60? “There’s a duality to it,” he says. “So in one way, I can answer that it’s pretty easy for me to make music. And then also, it’s fucking incredibly difficult to make something good. It can be both.”
He details the three-part work cycle that has defined his adult life: “There’s the demo process of writing. There’s the preproduction and actual recording of a record. And then there’s the period where you go out and tour it, along with all your other material, in a set. During that last third of the process, I’m really not writing, but through all the phases I’m always collecting riffs.” He’s also continually listening to great music, and allowing it to seep in. In the previous week, Cantrell says, he’d “rocked a bunch of Bad Company, UFO, AC/DC, some Maiden, some Hank Williams, some Ernest Tubb, some ‘Jungle Boogie.’”
Jerry Cantrell's Gear
This photo, taken from underneath the stage, shows Cantrell in his element, performing with Alice in Chains at Lollapalooza in the early ’90s.
Photo by Ken Settle
Guitars
- G&L “Blue Dress” Rampage
- G&L “No War” Rampage
- Gibson “D Trip” Les Paul Custom
- Gibson Les Paul Junior
- Gibson Flying V
- G&L ASAT
Amps
- Bogner Fish preamp
- Friedman JJ-100 signature head
- Snorkeler (Bogner-modded Marshall JCM800)
Effects
- Dunlop Jerry Cantrell Firefly Cry Baby Wah
- MXR Jerry Cantrell Firefly Talk Box
- MXR EQ
- MXR EVH Flanger
- MXR Smart Gate
- MXR Timmy
- MXR Poly Blue Octave
- MXR Reverb
- Ibanez Tube Screamer
- Boss CE-5
- Boss DD-500
- Strymon Ola dBucket Chorus & Vibrato
Strings & Picks
- Dunlop strings
- Dunlop picks
“I’m a fan of the riff,” he adds. “I’m always collecting ideas, and you never know when they’re going to come, or what they’re going to turn into. I look at it like depositing money in a bank. Like if I’m in a dressing room somewhere and I’m just warming up, and I see [one of my bandmates] react to something that I’m playing—put it in the bank. If I have a superpower, it is being able to hear something that might be a cool thing to work up and develop into a full-on song.
“When I’m slugging out riffs and just jamming out, if it feels good to rock out and your head starts moving and your foot starts tapping and you got something good—you know. It’s got to hit on a primal level first, and satisfy in that way.”
Writing, then, is often the more cerebral duty of assembling the best of what Cantrell has accrued and documented. “Like Lego pieces,” he says. “That used to be one of my favorite toys when I was a kid—Legos. Building stuff, block by block.” But, Cantrell points out, the process can also be more straightforward; he’ll start with a single riff and attempt to build the song’s infrastructure out from there, “throwing options at it, and ideas,” he says.
Cantrell, pictured here at 27, has carried on his hard-rock legacy with confidence, defying those who question his support and continuation of Alice in Chains’ influential sound.
Photo by Ebet Roberts
“I don’t necessarily know where I’m going a lot of the time. I just know that I have an intention to get there, and I’ve been able to take that journey to completion and make some pretty decent albums and songs over the years. And so I have the confidence to know that I probably can do this again—if I just put my mind to it and go through the process and work my ass off in concert with a group of people who have the same thought process.”
“There should always be the threat that the train is going to come off the rails.”
Cantrell is most certainly a “band” guy. For I Want Blood, he decided to play through a bunch of the material with his famous friends in preproduction, rather than simply assigning them one or two songs to guest on: “Let the players find their songs, and the songs find their players,” as he puts it. “It might’ve been with a little bit of frustration, because they got day jobs in some pretty impressive bands.” Time wasn’t exactly plentiful, but he did get in some living-room jams and other sessions with Trujillo, Bordin, and McKagan that ensured each track had its best possible lineup. Fortunately, Cantrell’s coproducer, Barresi, is similarly averse to cutting corners. Cantrell describes him as “a long-haul trucker” who “doesn’t suffer fools.”
“I’m an architect who is also a builder. You know what I mean?” says the guitarist, alluding to the relentless, often tedious work of record-making.“There should always be the threat that the train is going to come off the rails,” he says. For both men, Cantrell explains, “When you’re done with the record is when you think you couldn’t have done it any better.” Or, as Barresi likes to say, “How do you know you’ve gone too far unless you’ve already been there?”
Barresi also has a kind of encyclopedic recall of rock sonics. “He’s a guy who knows where all the bodies are buried,” Cantrell says, “and any combo of stuff you want to achieve: ‘Like, you know that song in The Departed, the Stones tune where it sounds like the guitar is going through a Leslie?’ [“Let It Loose,” off Exile on Main Street.] ‘Yeah, I know that pedal, man. Let’s grab it.’ You give him a reference and he knows how to replicate it.”
“I love working with a lot of different colors,” Cantrell says. “So I’ll use any guitar or any amp or any pedal to get a certain sound, and that all comes with experimentation. But it always starts with the basics.”
“When you’re done with the record is when you think you couldn’t have done it any better.”
If you’re a faithful reader of Premier Guitar, you may already know what that means: two mid-’80s G&L Rampages and the Les Paul Custom that Cantrell relied on to write his 2002 solo album Degradation Trip (the instrument with the custom blowtorch finish job). In amps, his go-to was the Bogner Fish preamp that he immortalized in Alice in Chains, in addition to his Friedman JJ-100 signature head. Cantrell also mentions the Bogner-modded Marshall sound he’s known for—aka the fabled Snorkeler—alongside tones from Orange and Laney. Among the guitars that made the cut: a butterscotch Les Paul Junior that was a gift from Billie Joe Armstrong a couple years back. When asked about effects, picks, and strings, Cantrell responds that he’s “a Dunlop guy”—which includes his MXR Jerry Cantrell Firefly Talk Box and Dunlop signature Cry Baby wah pedals.
YouTube It
Live at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles in 2021, Jerry Cantrell testifies to his status as one of the most iconic guitarists in hard-rock history.
Cantrell is a fount of anecdotes, and talking guitar is a great way to hear some of them. He first saw the Rampage onstage in a club, after moving from Washington to Dallas, Texas, in the mid-’80s. Later, he began jamming with some guys who played Rampages, and picked up a job at a music shop that their father managed. The shop was a G&L dealer, so Cantrell paid for his instruments in part by working there. The Rampage, he adds, “just felt right.”
“The guy who built the necks and bodies that Eddie used to build his guitars was right in my backyard.”
“You gotta give a lot of credit to Eddie Van Halen,” he adds. “[The Rampage] was basically Leo Fender’s answer to Frankenstein, to the Charvel/Jackson model. One tremolo, one knob, one humbucker; that’s it. No-nonsense, just a meat-and-potatoes rock ’n’ roll guitar.”
A few years before the Rampage—Cantrell pinpoints 1979, because Van Halen II was out—he obtained a neck that was originally intended for EVH, and used it on a Strat he built himself in woodshop. The neck was payment from Boogie Bodies, the legendary guitar-parts manufacturer where Lynn Ellsworth and Jim Warmoth laid the foundation for the Superstrat era. “That shop was in Puyallup, Washington,” Cantrell says, “and I lived in Spanaway, which was right next door.The guy who built the necks and bodies that Eddie used to build his guitars was right in my backyard.”
Cantrell was barely in his teens when he got a gig helping out around the shop, and earned a “beautiful bird’s-eye maple neck” that didn’t make it to Eddie because it had a small divot in the 3rd fret. Cantrell recalls today that his duties included sweeping up sawdust. Then, as now, it was all about the work.
Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine is one of the loudest guitarists around. And he puts his volume to work creating mythical tones that have captured so many of our imaginations, including our special shoegaze correspondent, guitarist and pedal-maestro Andy Pitcher, who is our guest today.
My Bloody Valentine has a short discography made up of just a few albums and EPs that span decades. Meticulous as he seems to be, Shields creates texture out of his layers of tracks and loops and fuzz throughout, creating a music that needs to be felt as much as it needs to be heard.
We go to the ultimate source as Billy Corgan leaves us a message about how it felt to hear those sounds in the pre-internet days, when rather than pull up a YouTube clip, your imagination would have to guide you toward a tone.
But not everyone is an MBV fan, so this conversation is part superfan hype and part debate. We can all agree Kevin Shields is a guitarists you should know, but we can’t all agree what to do with that information.