![Rig Rundown: Butch Walker [2022]](https://www.premierguitar.com/media-library/rig-rundown-butch-walker-2022.jpg?id=32346186&width=1245&height=700&quality=85&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C0)
PG’s John Bohlinger checks in with the guitarist/producer at the Nashville stop on his recent tour—to eyeball a bevy of classic-style Fender and Gibson 6-strings and his new, badass Two-Rock Bloomfield Drive amp.
When you produce acts like Taylor Swift, Fall Out Boy, Panic at the Disco, Weezer, Green Day, Pink, Rayland Baxter, Keith Urban, and Harry Connick Jr., it’s hard to find time for your own music. Yet in 2022, Butch Walker managed to release his 10th album, Butch Walker as … Glenn—a surprising tribute to the ’70s piano-rock balladeers that were among the rulers of FM radio in his youth. Nonetheless, that didn’t stop him from bringing a fleet of cool Fender and Gibson guitars, and a hemi of an amp, a Two-Rock Bloomfield Drive, on his recent It’s About Damn Tour tour.
For Walker, playing those guitars is something of a comeback celebration. In 2007, the house he was renting in Malibu from Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers caught fire and the Rome, Georgia, native lost the collection of classic axes he’d spent a lifetime accumulating, as well as the masters to every song of his own that he’d recorded. As Walker explains in the Rundown, it was a hard lesson about keeping up with insurance and making sure all his valuable instruments are covered—which they weren’t.
Today, he splits time in Nashville, where he’s also built a new version of his RubyRed studio in the old Warner Music building, from the 1950s. As Walker said in a Facebook post. “There’s been countless hits and amazing country and rock ’n’ roll songs recorded here over the years. It smells a little funny. It’s maybe haunted (hell, it was a morgue at one time). But I love it. It’s got vibe for days, sounds incredible, and people dig working here.”
So, dig into Walker’s Rig Rundown, which we filmed in November at Nashville’s Brooklyn Bowl.
Brought to you by D’Addario XS Strings.
Big Red
This Gibson ’61 reissue Custom Shop ES-335 with a Bigsby vibrato bridge, in wine red, was a gift from Gibson after most of Walker’s instruments were destroyed in the house fire. This guitar, and all of his electrics, stays strung with Ernie Ball .011 Slinkys.
Big Blue
Walker hand-painted this eye-catching Fender ’60s Custom Shop Telecaster, also with a Bigsby, blue with a floral-and-lightning-flash face.
Template Tele Classic
Here’s Walker’s all-stock Fender Custom Shop ’60s Telecaster Custom in a tobacco sunburst.
Give Gibson Some
This 2019 Gibson Explorer has a sonic secret weapon: a pair of 1970s DiMarzio Super Distortion pickups.
Rosy Tones
Another floral flourish: Walker’s live acoustic axe is a 2021 Gibson J-50 strung with an Ernie Ball Earthwood Medium Light set, .012–.054.
Old but Bold
It’s not every day you see a banjolin—not even in 1926, when Gibson built this one, just two years after the great guitar maker Lloyd Loar moved on from the company to begin early development of the concepts that would lead to electric guitar.
To Rock a Two-Rock
Walker runs his Two-Rock Bloomfield Drive into one of the company’s 2x12 open-back cabinets for his stage sound, but his guitar’s signal is fed into a Universal Audio Ox Box for extra tone sculpting. A Paul Reed Smith HDRX 20 come along as a backup.
Butch Walker’s Pedalboard
Actually, they’re Walker’s, and he reaches them via a Line 6 G90 wireless. From there, it’s a Boss TU-2 Chromatic Tuner, JHS Pulp N Peel compressor, his JHS ЯR signature overdrive, a Way Huge Conspiracy Theory OD, an MXR M249 Super Badass, MXR M300 reverb, UAFX Starlight Echo Station delay and Astra Modulation Machine, and a ToneDexter acoustic DI/preamp/wave mapping (similar to IR technology) pedal. Under the hood is a CIOKS DC10 for power.
- Hooked: Butch Walker on the James Gang's "Funk #49" ›
- Rig Rundown: Suzanne Santo ›
- First Look: Bad Cat Black Cat ›
Grammy-nominated session guitarist, producer, mixer, and engineer Paul Moak stays busy on multiple fronts. Over the years he’s written, played, produced and more for TV sessions (Pretty Little Liars, One Tree Hill) and artists including Third Day, Leeland, and the Blind Boys of Alabama. But most recently he’s worked with Heart and Ann Wilson and Tripsitter.
Time Traveler
Moak is most loyal to a 1963 Stratocaster body that’s mated to a 1980s-vintage, 3-bolt, maple, bullet-truss-rod, 1969-style Fender Japan neck. The bridge has been swapped as many as four times and the bridge and neck pickups are Lindy Fralins.
Cool Cat
If there’s one guitar Moak would grab in a fire, it’s the Jaguar he’s had since age 20 and used in his band DC Talk. When Moak bought the guitar at Music Go Round in Minneapolis, the olympic white finish was almost perfect. He remains impressed with the breadth of tones. He likes the low-output single-coils for use with more expansive reverb effects.
Mystery Message Les Paul
Moak’s 1970 L.P. Custom has a number of 1969 parts. It was traded to Moak by the band Feel. Interestingly, the back is carved with the words “cheat” and “liar,” telling a tale we can only speculate about.
Dad Rocker
Almost equally near and dear to Moak’s heart is this 1968 Vox Folk Twelve that belonged to his father. It has the original magnetic pickup at the neck as well as a piezo installed by Moak.
Flexi Plexis
This rare and precious trio of plexis can be routed in mix-and-match fashion to any of Moak’s extensive selection of cabs—all of which are miked and ready to roll.
Vintage Voices
Moak’s amps skew British, but ’60s Fender tone is here in plentitude courtesy of a blonde-and-oxblood Bassman and 1965 Bandmaster as well as a 2x6L6 Slivertone 1484 Twin Twelve.
Guess What?
The H-Zog, which is the second version of Canadian amp builder Garnet’s Herzog tube-driven overdrive, can work as an overdrive or an amp head, but it’s probably most famous for Randy Bachman’s fuzzy-as-heck “American Woman” tone.
Stomp Staff
While the Eventide H90 that helps anchor Moak’s pedalboard can handle the job of many pedals, he may have more amp heads on hand than stompboxes. But essentials include a JHS Pulp ‘N’ Peel compressor/preamp, a DigiTech Whammy II, DigiTech FreqOut natural feedback generator, a Pete Cornish SS-3 drive, Klon Centaur, and Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man.
