![Rig Rundown: Gov't Mule's Warren Haynes [2023]](https://www.premierguitar.com/media-library/rig-rundown-gov-t-mule-s-warren-haynes-2023.jpg?id=34115762&width=1245&height=700&quality=85&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C0)
The guitarist rolls into Nashville with a crew of Les Pauls and Firebirds, a pair of 100-watters, and a fine spread of stomps.
Maestro Warren Haynes invited PG’s John Bohlinger to Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium, where they hang out after Gov’t Mule’s soundcheck and take a tour through his live rig. This Gibson-heavy collection has been a 40-year-work in progress for the guitarist, who has spent his career playing with David Allan Coe, Dickey Betts, The Allman Brothers, The Dead, leading Gov’t Mule, and much, much more.
New Gov't Mule Album Peace...Like A River out 6/16.
Brought to you by D’Addario XS Strings.
Chester
“Chester,” the guitarist’s own signature Gibson Les Paul, was inspired by a ’58 body and ’59 neck, and is loaded with Burstbucker pickups and a switchable buffered preamp.
Big Red Two
“Big Red Two” is another of Haynes’ signature models, this time an ES-335, which is a copy of the guitarist’s PAF-loaded ’61 model.
Almost Firewood
Thanks to a pair of extra screw holes that were a factory accident, this flame-bedazzled tobacco ’burst LP was marked as a flaw and spent a couple years hanging around, unable to be sold. But back when he was in the Allman Brothers, Haynes visited Gibson and fell in love. He installed Classic ’57 pickups and he’s toured with it since.
The Dead Bird
Haynes picked up his blue mini-humbucker-loaded Gibson Firebird, “The Dead Bird,” when he was playing with the Grateful Dead in 2009 and says it “has a unique sound that’s somewhere between a Gibson and a Fender.”
Three's a Crowd
This Gibson Custom Shop Firebird is loaded with a trio P-90s and, like his other Firebird, stays tuned down a half step. Each of Haynes’ 6-strings are strung with GHS Nickel Rockers .010–.046.
Dirty Dozen
It takes a massive headstock to fit a dozen strings on this Les Paul. Haynes keeps “Railroad Boy” tuned to drop D, and he uses its coil-tap switch for extra flexibility when needed.
100 Watts for Might
Haynes runs a two-amp rig and calls on each at different times—never both at once. On one side is his Soldano SLO-100, which the guitarist had modded by Mike Soldano to boost low-mid response at his preferred low preamp volume settings. The 100-watt head is paired with a Marshall cab loaded with a quartet of 75-watt Celestions.
Home Is Where the Tone Is
On the other side is a 100-watt Homestead head that Haynes runs into a 4x12 cab loaded with 25-watt Celestion Greenbacks.
Warren Haynes' Pedalboard
Haynes uses a Custom Audio Electronics MIDI foot controller to access most of his pedals, which live in an offstage rack. His Ernie Ball JP Jr. volume pedal, signature G-Lab WOWEE Wah WH-1, and a D’Addario tuner sit alongside.
On one shelf of Haynes’ rack sits a gold Klon Centaur, Diaz Texas Ranger treble booster, Boss OC-2 Octave, Emma DiscumBOBulator envelope filter, and a CAE Super Tremolo.
And on the other is a Hughes & Kettner Rotosphere, G-Lab DR-3 Dual Reverb, DigiTech Hardwire DL-8 Delay Looper, MXR Carbon Copy, and a Boss GE-7 Equalizer.
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Tom Bedell in the Relic Music acoustic room, holding a custom Seed to Song Parlor with a stunning ocean sinker redwood top and milagro Brazilian rosewood back and sides.
A born storyteller, Bedell doesn’t keep his passion to himself. On Friday, May 12, at New Jersey boutique guitar outpost Relic Music, Bedell shared some of the stories he’s collected during his life and travels as part of a three-city clinic trip. At Relic—and stops at Crossroads Guitar and Art in Gilbertsville, Pennsylvania, and Chuck Levin’s Washington Music Center in Wheaton, Maryland—he discussed his guitars and what makes them so special, why sustainability is such an important cause, and how he’s putting it into practice.
Before his talk, we sat in Relic’s cozy, plush acoustic room, surrounded by a host of high-end instruments. We took a look at a few of the store’s house-spec’d Bedell parlors while we chatted.
“The story of this guitar is the story of the world,” Bedell explained to me, holding a Seed to Song Parlor. He painted a picture of a milagro tree growing on a hillside in northeastern Brazil some 500 years ago, deprived of water and growing in stressful conditions during its early life. That tree was eventually harvested, and in the 1950s, it was shipped to Spain by a company that specialized in church ornaments. They recognized this unique specimen and set it aside until it was imported to the U.S. and reached Oregon. Now, it makes the back and sides of this unique guitar.
A Bedell Fireside Parlor with a buckskin redwood top and cocobolo back and sides.
As for the ocean sinker redwood top, “I’m gonna make up the story,” Bedell said, as he approximated the life cycle of the tree, which floated in the ocean, soaking up minerals for years and years, and washed ashore on northern Oregon’s Manzanita Beach. The two woods were paired and built into a small run of exquisitely outfitted guitars using the Bedell/Breedlove Sound Optimization process—in which the building team fine-tunes each instrument’s voice by hand-shaping individual braces to target resonant frequencies using acoustic analysis—and Bedell and his team fell in love.
Playing it while we spoke, I was smitten by this guitar’s warm, responsive tone and even articulation and attack across the fretboard; it strikes a perfect tonal balance between a tight low-end and bright top, with a wide dynamic range that made it sympathetic to anything I offered. And as I swapped guitars, whether picking up a Fireside Parlor with a buckskin redwood top and cocobolo back and sides or one with an Adirondack spruce top and Brazilian rosewood back and sides, the character and the elements of each instrument changed, but that perfect balance remained. Each of these acoustics—and of any Bedell I’ve had the pleasure to play—delivers their own experiential thumbprint.
Rosette and inlay detail on an Adirondack spruce top.
Ultimately, that’s what brought Bedell out to the East Coast on this short tour. “We have a totally different philosophy about how we approach guitar-building,” Bedell effused. “There are a lot of individuals who build maybe 12 guitars a year, who do some of the things that we do, but there’s nobody on a production level.” And he wants to spread that gospel.
“We want to reach people who really want something special,” he continued, pointing out that for the Bedell line, the company specifically wants to work with shops like Relic and the other stores he’s visited, “who have a clientele that says I want the best guitar I can possibly have, and they carry enough variety that we can give them that.”
A Fireside Parlor with a Western red cedar top and Brazilian rosewood back and sides.
