Titan tonal technician Kurt Ballou and sledgehammering bassist Nate Newton detail the chiseling tools they use to carve their colossal sound.
Kurt Ballou takes tone very seriously. He’s been on the leading edge of aggressive guitar sounds since 1990, and Converge’s fourth album, 2001’s Jane Doe, is still seen as a game-changing release, with its ferocious performances and masterful production. His sonic temple, God City Studio, is the destination for artists looking to make their rawest, heaviest, brutalist work. Ballou has even developed a gear brand (God City Instruments) that includes guitars, pedals, and pickups, all in the pursuit of turning ideas into art.
During our conversation before Converge’s sold-out performance at Nashville’s Basement East on May 22nd, Ballou dove into his Line 6 Helix spice rack and shared how 30 plus years as a guitarist and in-demand producer have informed his guitar-design philosophy. Plus, he detailed why his goal is to get to a place where “gear doesn’t matter.” And then, longtime bassist Nate Newton joined the fun by showing off his “Riffblaster” setup and how a special P-Bass helps him honor a dear friend.
Brought to you by D’Addario String Finder.
Construction Zone
For this headlining Converge run, Kurt took to the road with a pair of his own God City Instruments shred sticks. This one is the Constructivist model that has a body shape Kurt has been employing for over a decade. This current iteration has an ash body, roasted maple neck (with bolt-on assembly and C profile), ebony fretboard with cream binding, a Graph Tech nut, and comes loaded with a set of GCI’s Soap Jammers that are stacked alnico 5 humbuckers (10k bridge output/7k neck output). Ballou describes the Soap Jammers as “being high-output humbuckers that have the midrange push of a P-90 that still chugga chuggas like a humbucker.” He’s been using D’Addario strings for over 20 years and has been loyal to the NYXLs since they came out. He currently prefers the Medium Top/Extra Heavy Bottom set (.011–.056) and bludgeons them with D’Addario Duragrip Yellow (light/medium) picks.
Rock 'n' Roll Machine
Here is Kurt’s single-pickup GCI Craftsman that has a chambered mahogany body paired with a wenge top, a maple neck with set-neck construction, wenge fretboard with cream binding, Graph Tech nut and PM-8593 bridge, and it screams—thanks to the high-output GCI Slug Jammer humbucker that has a ceramic magnet and 13k resistance.
Ballou adds that “It’s a beautiful guitar that I just love to play. This is my favorite—just a basic rock ’n’ roll machine, and I use it the most for writing and recording Converge stuff.”
A Floor Smorgasbord
Converge would love to tour with stacks of gear, but they also live in the real world. They understand the compromise a modern hardcore band must make to pull off shows to their high standard, while also staying in the black, so for a few years Kurt has turned to the Line 6 Helix. He says it gives him a consistent, reliable sound each night that can be stored as a carry-on. Another perk is that his setup is in a stereo configuration, and the Helix’s direct-out function allows him to run front-of-house a stereo signal without having to worry about miking cabs (and possible phasing issues) that inevitably happen when mics and cabs get bumped and moved during Converge’s chaotic performances.
For these “Converge Classic”** headlining shows, Ballou operates the Helix in stompbox mode with a “Kvrt Preset V6.” Some of the pieces of the puzzle include a Centaur-style distortion, two separate noise gates, a Tycoctavia Fuzz, a Dual Pitch setting, Ping Pong (turning on stereo delay and reverb at the same time), and a Searchlights reverb patch. All of these are engaged and omitted by Ballou as if they were pedals on a standard board. He does use a phase looper for the song “Eye of the Quarrel” that allows him to play both guitar parts featured on it. His amps are based on modelings chasing a Diezel (Das Benzin Mega) and PRS Archon.
Worth noting that Ballou's grievances on the Helix were addressed by Ben Adrian of Line 6. Here's what he had to say: The gripes Kurt had with the unit can be resolved by issuing an update a while back, the tuner got a "Trails on/off" control, which allows delay, reverb, and looper audio to pass when the tuner is engaged. Also, with an update, "Command Center" was implemented a while back.This allows almost any function to be assigned to any switch in stomp mode. This includes all the controls for the looper.
(**Converge did an album with Chelsea Wolfe in 2021 called Bloodmoon: I. That included the standard four-piece Converge lineup but then added Wolfe, Stephen Brodsky, and Ben Chisholm. They toured as a seven-piece band, then Ballou had his Helix in snapshot mode that had several changes and settings moved automatically by the unit. The band now jokingly refers to their regular quartet as “Converge Classic.”)
Mighty Minis
Rather than employ the Helix’s IR technology, Ballou runs out of the Helix to a pair of Quilter Overdrive 202 heads.
Cat Power
Those Quilters then power a couple of Bad Cat 4x12s filled with Celestion Vintage 30s, giving Kurt all the stage volume he can handle.
Meet Mr. Riffblaster
Nate Newton has been the Converge bassist since 1998, and has always stayed true to the Fender Precision bass. He was gifted this green P from Fender, and modded it by adding in his signature Lace Riffblaster that the company says utilizes “the power of ceramic magnets to create the perfect balance of extreme power and articulation.” He uses Ernie Ball Regular Slinky Bass strings and green D’Addario Duralin Precision picks (medium).
In the Stream of Caleb Scofield
Newton’s other main gig since 2018 has been filling the void of Cave In bassist Caleb Scofield who tragically passed away five years ago. To honor their fallen brother, Cave In has kept Scofield’s P in their gear collection for Newton to use on Cave In recordings and tours. He has it with him on the Converge tour because once their run ended, he met the Cave In crew out in Colorado for their tour behind 2022’s Heavy Pendulum. Newton put in a set of his Lace Riffblaster pickups and noted during the Rundown that “it’s the best-sounding P-Bass” he’s ever played, and, for what it means to play this bass in Scofield’s spot: “It’s a weird thing, especially playing the older songs and using this bass. In a twisted way, it kind of feels like hanging out with Caleb. It feels like he’s there with us, and it’s an honor to play this bass in that band. I cherish it.”
Slim and Husky
For years Newton has plugged into this Orange AD200B Mk3 that pumps out 200 watts, thanks to four KT88 power tubes. It runs into an old Ampeg 8x10 cabinet. A Quilter Bass Block 802 rides as a backup for Converge, but takes the spotlight when he plays with Cave In.
Nate Newton's Pedalboard
The condensed stompbox station still shifts tectonic plates, in large part because of the Nunez Tetra-Fet Drive always being on with Converge. It takes the AD200 from a rumbler to molten-lava erupter. Both the Dunlop CBM105Q Cry Baby Bass Mini Wah and DOD Rubberneck Analog Delay are rarely used with Converge, but both get plenty of usage for Cave In sets. The Shift-Line A+ CabZone Bass sends the signal to front-of-house and offers 10 power amp emulations for additional shaping. The TC Electronic PolyTune keeps his Ps in check, and everything rides tight and tidy on a Pedaltrain Nano+ platform.
Shop Converge's Rig
- Quilter Labs Overdrive 202 200-watt Head
- Line 6 Helix Guitar Multi-effects Floor Processor
- Fender American Professional II Precision Bass V
- Orange AD200B MK 3 200-watt Bass Head
- DOD Rubberneck Analog Delay Pedal with Tap Tempo
- Dunlop CBM105Q Cry Baby Mini Bass Wah Pedal
- TC Electronic PolyTune 3 Polyphonic LED Guitar Tuner Pedal with Buffer
- Rig Rundown: Djunah ›
- Rig Rundown: Code Orange's Reba Meyers ›
- Pro Pedalboards 2022! ›
- Converge: Kurt Ballou’s Second Nature ›
We know Horsegirl as a band of musicians, but their friendships will always come before the music. From left to right: Nora Cheng, drummer Gigi Reece, and Penelope Lowenstein.
“It was kind of life-changing, honestly. It changed how I thought about womanhood,” Lowenstein says over the call, laughing a bit at the gravitas of the statement.
But the moment of levity illuminates the fact that big things are happening in their lives. When they released their debut album, 2022’s Versions of Modern Performance, the three members of Horsegirl were still teenagers in high school. Their new, sophomore record, Phonetics On and On, arrives right in the middle of numerous first experiences—their first time living away from home, first loves, first years of their 20s, in university. Horsegirl is going through changes. Lowenstein notes how, through moving to a new city, their friendship has grown, too, into something more familial. They rely on each other more.
“If the friendship was ever taking a toll because of the band, the friendship would come before the band, without any doubt.”–Penelope Lowenstein
“Everyone's cooking together, you take each other to the doctor,” Lowenstein says. “You rely on each other for weird things. I think transitioning from being teenage friends to suddenly working together, touring together, writing together in this really intimate creative relationship, going through sort of an unusual experience together at a young age, and then also starting school together—I just feel like it brings this insane intimacy that we work really hard to maintain. And if the friendship was ever taking a toll because of the band, the friendship would come before the band without any doubt.”
Horsegirl recorded their sophomore LP, Phonetics On and On, at Wilco’s The Loft studio in their hometown, Chicago.
These changes also include subtle and not-so-subtle shifts in their sophisticated and artful guitar-pop. Versions of Modern Performance created a notion of the band as ’90s college-rock torchbearers, with reverb-and-distortion-drenched numbers that recalled Yo La Tengo and the Breeders. Phonetics On and On doesn’t extinguish the flame, but it’s markedly more contemporary, sacrificing none of the catchiness but opting for more space, hypnotic guitar lines, and meditative, repeated phrases. Cheng and Lowenstein credit Welsh art-pop wiz Cate Le Bon’s presence as producer in the studio as essential to the sonic direction.
“On the record, I think we were really interested in Young Marble Giants—super minimal, the percussiveness of the guitar, and how you can do so much with so little.”–Nora Cheng
“We had never really let a fourth person into our writing process,” Cheng says. “I feel like Cate really changed the way we think about how you can compose a song, and built off ideas we were already thinking about, and just created this very comfortable space for experimentation and pushed us. There are so many weird instruments and things that aren't even instruments at [Wilco’s Chicago studio] The Loft. I feel like, definitely on our first record, we were super hesitant to go into territory that wasn't just distorted guitar, bass, and drums.”
Nora Cheng's Gear
Nora Cheng says that letting a fourth person—Welsh artist Cate Le Bon—into the trio’s songwriting changed how they thought about composition.
Photo by Braden Long
Effects
- EarthQuaker Devices Plumes
- Ibanez Tube Screamer
- TC Electronic Polytune
Picks
- Dunlop Tortex .73 mm
Phonetics On and On introduces warm synths (“Julie”), raw-sounding violin (“In Twos”), and gamelan tiles—common in traditional Indonesian music—to Horsegirl’s repertoire, and expands on their already deep quiver of guitar sounds as Cheng and Lowenstein branch into frenetic squonks, warped jangles, and jagged, bare-bones riffs. The result is a collection of songs simultaneously densely textured and spacious.
“I listen to these songs and I feel like it captures the raw, creative energy of being in the studio and being like, ‘Fuck! We just exploded the song. What is about to happen?’” Lowenstein says. “That feeling is something we didn’t have on the first record because we knew exactly what we wanted to capture and it was the songs we had written in my parents’ basement.”
Cheng was first introduced to classical guitar as a kid by her dad, who tried to teach her, and then she was subsequently drawn back to rock by bands like Cage The Elephant and Arcade Fire. Lowenstein started playing at age 6, which covers most of her life memories and comprises a large part of her identity. “It made me feel really powerful as a young girl to know that I was a very proficient guitarist,” she says. The shreddy playing of Television, Pink Floyd’s spacey guitar solos, and Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan were all integral to her as Horsegirl began.
Penelope Lowenstein's Gear
Penelope Lowenstein likes looking back at the versions of herself that made older records.
Photo by Braden Long
Effects
- EarthQuaker Westwood
- EarthQuaker Bellows
- TC Electronic PolyTune
Picks
- Dunlop Tortex 1.0 mm
Recently, the two of them have found themselves influenced by guitarists both related and unrelated to the type of tunes they’re trading in on their new album. Lowenstein got into Brazilian guitar during the pandemic and has recently been “in a Jim O’Rourke, John Fahey zone.”
“There’s something about listening to that music where you realize, about the guitar, that you can just compose an entire orchestra on one instrument,” Lowenstein says. “And hearing what the bass in those guitar parts is doing—as in, the E string—is kind of mind blowing.”
“On the record, I think we were really interested in Young Marble Giants—super minimal, the percussiveness of the guitar, and how you can do so much with so little,” Cheng adds. “And also Lizzy Mercier [Descloux], mostly on the Rosa Yemen records. That guitar playing I feel was very inspiring for the anti-solo,[a technique] which appears on [Phonetics On and On].”This flurry of focused discovery gives the impression that Cheng and Lowenstein’s sensibilities are shifting day-to-day, buoyed by the incredible expansion of creative possibilities that setting one’s life to revolve around music can afford. And, of course, the energy and exponential growth of youth. Horsegirl has already clocked major stylistic shifts in their brief lifespan, and it’s exciting to have such a clear glimpse of evolution in artists who are, likely and hopefully, just beginning a long journey together.
“There’s something about listening to that music where you realize, about the guitar, that you can just compose an entire orchestra on one instrument.”–Penelope Lowenstein
“In your 20s, life moves so fast,” Lowenstein says. “So much changes from the time of recording something to releasing something that even that process is so strange. You recognize yourself, and you also kind of sympathize with yourself. It's a really rewarding way of life, I think, for musicians, and it's cool that we have our teenage years captured like that, too—on and on until we're old women.”
YouTube It
Last summer, Horsegirl gathered at a Chicago studio space to record a sun-soaked set of new and old tunes.
