![Rig Rundown: Deafheaven [2026]](https://www.premierguitar.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=68596184&width=3600&height=2025)
PG’s Chris Kies caught up with Deafheaven’s Kerry McCoy at the Satellite Music Hall in Memphis, ahead of a support slot with Mastodon. McCoy calls it a “rig redo,” which is about right: the heads, the guitars, and the pedals have all turned over since the last one. Have a look at some quick highlights below, and tune into the new Rig Rundown for all the details.
Brought to you by D’Addario.
On Loan
McCoy’s main guitar is a stock Gibson Les Paul Standard, one of the loaners Gibson has been supplying the band for the better part of a decade. He says he still isn’t sure how they snuck onto that list, given who else is on it, and that they take care of them and give them back.
Standard Issue
McCoy plays D’Addario NYXLs, and has for years. Tunings stay fairly conventional: standard and drop D cover most of the catalog, with a few songs on the last record in DADFAD and DADFAD#. The new EP, At Work in the Fields of the Bomb, is the outlier, written entirely in C-sharp standard and drop B.
Why He Quit Lugging Heads
McCoy runs a Line 6 Helix Floor, and keeps two banks of four: clean verb, clean delay, distorted verb, distorted delay. The clean side is a JC-120 model; the distorted is a 5150 with a Tube Screamer in front. The second quadrant is labeled by song so he knows where he is mid-set. A Poly Capo handles the pitch shift on “Hunter,” which a former tech had to tell him was in there.
